Stories from the

CLIMB Consensus Group

Edited by Kenneth Nadolski,

Lourdes Rodríguez, and

Mindy Thompson Fullilove

CHRONICLES

THE

Copyright 2017 by Kenneth Nadolski

Cover design and book layout by Rich Brown

Table of ConTenTs

Introduction 1

Section 1: Starting to CLIMB 2

Can You Get There From Here? 3

Bringing People Together at the Park 12

CLIMB and the First Hike the Heights 15

Of Giraffes and Geology 17

CLIMB Timeline 20

Section 2: Designing the Trail 21

Early Design Consultations 22

A Beginning 22

CLIMB 155th Street Studio 23

Getting a Giraffe from Paris 23

Manhattan’s Cliffside Parks and The Urbanist’s Challenge 26

DesigNYC: Mapping the Giraffe Path 29

Mobile, Mutable: CLIMB and Hike the Heights 9 29

Section 3: Spreading the Word 33

One Hot Summer: Reflections on CLIMB Summer 34

CLIMB DoubleTake 39

Presenting CLIMB 41

Teaching CLIMB 42

Connecting People and Getting Bodies Moving 44

Jane’s Walk 45

Highbridge Park Walk 46

Section 4: Planning Hike the Heights 47

Planning the Party! 48

Hike the Heights Co-Chair Experiences 52

The Scouts of Washington Heights 56

Loaves & Fishes & Chicken & Salad: Serving the Hikers 57

Giraffe Path 60

Making Art with Children and Families and Building Community 62

Children’s Aid Society (CAS) In-Service Training 65

The Soundtrack of Hike the Heights 67

A Midwife, Community, and Belly Dancers 69

Partnerships for Parks and Hike the Heights 70

Section 5: Reflecting on Connections and Community 73

Showing Up for The Pit: Coming Across Broadway 74

More than Just One Day 78

Parks for All 80

Making Connections and Building Partnerships 83

Explore Your City 85

A Natural High 86

An Education from CLIMB and Hike the Heights 88

A Full Heart 89

Learning About Community 90

A Poem 92

Who Will Organize CLIMB? 93

What Did We Accomplish (So Far)? 95

An Urbanist’s Manifesto 97

Shout-Outs! 98

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InTroduCTIon

From the past thirteen years of annual Hike the Heights community potluck events to hundreds of walks through the parks of northern Manhattan, The CLIMB Chronicles tells the story of City Life Is Moving Bodies (CLIMB).

Members of our CLIMB Consensus Group —neighbors of all ages and walks of life, students, researchers, and organizational leaders—have contributed to CLIMB and Hike the Heights since 2004.

In the spirit of our community potluck approach, where everyone brings something to add to the celebration, we asked CLIMB Consensus Group members from over the years to share their stories, thoughts, and reflections. This book is the result.

We hope you enjoy our story and are inspired to CLIMB in your neighborhood!

Trail in South Highbridge Park during an early CLIMB walk (circa 2005).

Rock climbing along the same trail during Hike the Heights 8 in 2012.

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seCTIon 1: sTarTIng To CLIMB

“At its heart, CLIMB is a project that proposes to enhance the physical, social, and economic health of northern Manhattan neighborhoods by

re-integrating its parks and public spaces adjacent to them into daily life.” – Lourdes Rodríguez (née Hernández-Cordero)

City Life Is Moving Bodies (CLIMB) began as a project of the Community Research Group at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in January 2004.

This northern Manhattan community-based initiative was founded on the belief that safe parks and neighborhoods are essential to community health, and that all commu-nities, regardless of socioeconomic background, are entitled to access to safe parks and neighborhoods. CLIMB grew to be composed of a diverse group of individuals and organizations working together as the CLIMB Consensus Group.

In this section of The CLIMB Chronicles, we focus on the need, background, and historical overview of CLIMB, along with how we ended up with our giraffe mascot!

Bea Spolidoro helped bring CLIMB’s clip-art giraffe to life with colorful graphics seen on the cover and at the beginning of each section of The CLIMB Chronicles.

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Can You Get There From Here?

By Lourdes Rodríguez

In the mid 1990s, in the throes of the violence epidemic that upset life in northern Manhattan, people stopped going out to enjoy the neighborhood. They were afraid to linger on the street to talk to their neighbors or to take their children to the parks. People stopped window shopping on busy streets or going out to evening meetings. These security measures seemed a good way to keep one’s family safe from random bullets. In those days, the answer to the question, “Can you get there from here?” was “Depends.”

By the early 2000s, the Community Research Group (CRG) was still making sense of the effects of back-to-back epidemics in both northern Manhattan and South Bronx communities: crack, HIV, violence, obesity, diabetes. By the time the events of September 11, 2001 took place, the research team had developed a keen understanding of what chronic destruction of communities did to both the health of people and the quality of the built environment. The resulting trauma—mental, spiritual, and physical—was experienced at the individual, collective, and built environment levels.

In response to the events of 9/11 in New York City, CRG took stock of all that we had learned about chronic disas-ter and applied those lessons to the much-needed task of collective recovery. We devel-oped a framework that called on all of us to remember, respect, learn, and connect. Our team was never the same after learning about how organizations came together to add collective recovery to their work agendas through NYC RECOVERS. After going through the Year of Recovery (first 15 months after 9/11) and Take Heart (second anniversary) we could not go back to “research business as usual.” So we did what any team found at a loss for where to go next would do: we hired a consultant.

It was now the fall of 2004. Our consultant directed the team to undertake some organizational soul searching. As part of this process, she asked that we promise each other to spend time together in nature. Lourdes Rodríguez had completed a course with Partnerships for Parks and was now a Cer-tified Citizen Steward. She knew where nature was in northern Manhattan, and she led the team on regular walks of the Old Croton Aqueduct access path and into the Narnia-esque world surrounding the High Bridge. Spending time together in nature, we came to appreciate that the disinvestment

Stroller Hike at the first Hike the Heights in 2005.

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Aerial photo of West 155th Street, showing the point at which Highbridge Park (north) almost touches Jackie Robinson Park (south).

leading to the destruction of the built infrastructure inside and near our parks was the embodiment of parallel processes taking place in the social networks of the adjacent neighborhoods.

During that same time, Mindy Fullilove was serving on the National Task Force on Community Preventive Services, which reviewed exercise research and found that people increase their outdoor exercise if there is a nice trail to walk. Mindy, while studying two large aerial photos of Harlem/Washington Heights that were hanging in the CRG offices, noticed that Highbridge Park was almost touching Jackie Robinson Park, which was almost touching St. Nicholas Park, which was almost touching Morningside Park. Could we make a hiking trail to connect the parks?

Urbanist Marshall Brown helped CRG conceptualize this. He invented the name “City Life Is Moving Bodies” and designed a map and a logo for us.

What a great name! City people walk to the subway to go to work. We walk to the corner store to get a loaf of bread. We walk to the park to enjoy the outdoors. As we move, we meet friends, we see surprising events, and we get great exer-cise. When people move, the city works for all of us. People’s movement is essential for personal health, social health, po-litical health, civic health, and economic well-being. To the question “Can you get there from here?” we added: “How can we encourage people to get out and move?” The timing was impeccable. So we added another question: “Do city people want to hike?”

Having spent time together in nature, we believed that the answer was “YES.”

During the years of the crack epidemic, when violence dominated street life in these neighborhoods, park use and maintenance declined. Entrances were closed and areas were fenced off. New invest-ment by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation and “Friends of” organizations slowly brought these parks back to life, but the fearful memories lingered in the minds of many longtime residents. Abandoned parks can be a drag on local life, while their reconnection and reuse will energize it. At the same, the gentrification of the area poses enormous challenges for who will use the parks once investments have been made.

At its heart, CLIMB is a project that proposes to enhance the physical, social, and economic health of northern Manhattan neighborhoods by re-integrating its parks and public spaces adjacent to them —Morningside, St. Nicholas, Jackie Robinson, Swindler Cove, RING Garden, and Highbridge Parks—into daily life. We do this by promoting an urban hiking trail that connects these parks and by holding our annual flagship event, Hike the Heights, that now takes place on National Trails Day, the first Saturday of every June.

On June 18, 2005, CRG, in collaboration with the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health and WE ACT, helped organize the first Hike the Heights, a day of hiking and health activ-

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ities in Highbridge Park. Three hundred people came out to enjoy the sun and the trails. People discovered the beauty of places that had been abandoned to violence. One man, hiking through the Highbridge Forest, said, “This is like Panama!”

That first year, Hike the Heights looked a lot like a health fair that had bumped into a church picnic. Tables with health promotion and disease prevention materials, alongside a long line of delicious “Domini-Rican” picnic food: rice, chicken, green salad, hot dogs, and burgers. The one thing that made it different was that we added a “movement requirement” to all tabling activities. Do you want a brochure on home asthma triggers? Show me your hula hoop moves! Need some tobacco cessation pamphlets? Jump through the hopscotch!

In the 12 years since that first Hike the Heights, the event has morphed. After years of collabora-tion, we look a lot less like a health fair, and a lot more like a movement festival. We look to model the things we want people to do in the park, rather than tell them what would be good for them. Over the years, we have climbed a rock face, jumped ropes, read under a tree, learned how to play basketball, and danced (to the beat of drums, capoeira rhythms, and even a marching band!). We have developed a “community potluck” approach to putting together the event, meaning that every person and organization brings something to contribute. This might be an organized art project, a performance, an impromptu dance contest, or simply bringing along friends and neighbors to par-ticipate in the celebration. We all know how no two potlucks are ever the same. Whoever shows up, and what they bring, adds to the variety and diversity of the potluck. For over a decade, and during “skinny cow times” and “fat cow times” we have also taken collective steps to build the trail to get us there. We have built the trail by walking.

Our Consensus Group Model

The CLIMB Consensus Group leads the work of CLIMB and of planning Hike the Heights. We are forever grateful to Terri Baltimore, Vice President of Neighborhood Development at the Hill House Association in Pittsburgh, for sharing with us the consensus group model. We adapted this model for community organizing to suit the context of northern Manhattan and work anchored in a commu-nity-campus partnership, rather than in a neighborhood association as in the case of Hill House. Everyone and anyone who over the years helped organize and implement CLIMB activities can claim membership in the Consensus Group.

There are no formal membership requirements other than showing up. Shared leadership means

CLIMB made a banner to thank the workers who had restored the High Bridge. We were delighted when they wrote back, “You are welcome!”

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that anyone attending a meeting can take on the role of facilitator, and that everyone’s contribution is valued equally regardless of who she or he may be (i.e. individual volunteer stay-at-home mom, retiree, executive director of a local organization). Shared responsibility means that, although senior members usually take on the role of facilitator, self-appointed co-chairs for each Hike the Heights can facilitate as well. We believe that all can “come as you are, bring what you can” to the consensus group. In fact, during many Hike the Heights, organizations would just show up with programming and their constituents without having attended any of the consensus group planning meetings.

There are a few drawbacks to this model. For example, accountability has sometimes been chal-lenging, with some co-chairs scrambling towards the finish line to ensure there is food for Hike the Heights. Or the year that none of the entertainers showed up, so we had a stage with no performers. But we always make do. That year of no formal entertainers gave origin to our “open stage” after a group of children from the Countee Cullen Community Center self-organized a singing and dancing competition.

If we needed to describe the Consensus Group, we could say there are core members, who show up regularly to meetings or who over the years have become key contacts for particular tasks or constit-uencies. For example, Maudene Nelson and Vanny Lantigua are in charge of food, Arelis De La O is in charge of securing the sound permit, Nancy Bruning is in charge of training hike leaders, and An-tonio Camacho and Lizzette Perez bring the scouts. There are also “call me if you need me” members who—like the name implies—show up as needed and reliably when called upon. For example, we can count on Matt Mahoney to lend tables and chairs for the event, and Denise Hykes will gladly be there when we need to pick-up and drop off the shared communal stage. Sometimes organizational members would have staff turnaround, and we would lose the contact person with the organization-al history of collaboration. On those occasions when a warm handoff was not made from one staff member to another, we had to rebuild those relationships and used storytelling to explain what New York Restoration Project, or Creative Art Works involvement had been over the years. Luckily, staff turnover on occasion meant we would gain a new partner, as when Tony Gonzalez left Creative Art Works and joined the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling.

Talking about having a communal stage, it is worth mentioning that over the years, in times when we had financial resources, we acquired gear to use year after year. Some of our partners became stewards of these. The Manhattan Bible Church uses our portable stage for religious services in the gym, and Inwood Community Services (ICR) and Community League of the Heights (CLOTH) each host two 12 x 12 collapsible tents. Any partner who needs these items, can simply borrow them —in the spirit of a cooperative.

Building the Trail to Get Us There: Highbridge Park, the High Bridge, and the High Bridge Coalition

Our early CLIMB work benefitted immensely from our relationship with staff from the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, especially Northern Manhattan Parks’ Administrator Jennifer Hoppa (and all her staff ) and City Parks Foundation’s Partnerships for Parks—too many beautiful, meaningful, and wonderful people to mention (for fear that I will forget one!). Highbridge Park, a magnificent escarpment park on the easternmost side of Manhattan that runs from Dyckman (200th) Street down to 155th Street was the epicenter of our work.

Named for the bridge that connects the Manhattan and Bronx sides of the park, the High Bridge,

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this two-borough park was our classroom for many years. For the first year of our project, CRG held walking meetings in the park as a team, with neighbors, and with colleagues at least once a week. We became familiar with its geography, its trails (both the paved and unpaved ones), the spaces under the elevated roadway, and its history as a destination and amusement park since in the late 1800s. Walking meetings became our preferred method of data collection, the best tool for engagement, and key to our community mobilization (see the box on the following pages for more on walking meetings).

We discovered the High Bridge, which had been closed in the 1970s. We became obsessed with learning as much as we could about this magical structure and key part of the Old Croton Aqueduct, which brought the first clean water to New York City starting in the 1840s. Our first High Bridge teacher was Joseph Sanchez, who at the time was the Catalyst Coordinator for Highbridge Park. He introduced CRG to many of the partners who went on to form CLIMB, was part of the Consensus Group, and helped us build the CLIMB Trail.

Our starting point for “Building the trail to get us there” was the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail, which goes over part of the aqueduct that took water from the Croton Reservoir to the reservoir at Bryant Park, by the New York Public Li-brary. The whole trail is over 40 miles long. We picked the section that runs through northern Manhattan parks and expanded it north, to Swindler Cove, then along Dyckman Street (200th Street) to the RING Garden and Fort Tryon Park, and south through the escarpment parks down to Central Park West and 110th Street. Because of this, Joseph Sanchez roped us into the High Bridge Coalition, whose goal was to reopen the High Bridge.

In the timeline of our CLIMB history, joining, supporting, and—for a few years—co-chairing the High Bridge Coali-tion was pivotal to our work. Every movement must have a big bold and audacious goal, and every movement must stand firmly on “what we are for” (as opposed to “what we are against”). Ernest Thompson, labor organizer extraordi-naire and Mindy Fullilove’s father, taught us that. CLIMB adopted supporting the reopening of the High Bridge as part of “what we were for.”

Over the past 13 years, all of our Hike the Heights events included taking people to the High Bridge, to the Water Tower, and to the stairs connecting the Water Tower Terrace to the bridge. Always (always!!) we asked these questions:

• When these stairs reopen, who will walk them?

• When this bridge reopens, who will cross it?

• Will it be you? Or, will you be displaced along the way? And,

• What are you going to do about it?!

Hike the Heights 4 in 2008 celebrated the High Bridge and looked forward to its reopening.

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The first time hikers walked up and down the new Water Tower Terrace stairs was glorious, and the first time hikers from the Bronx met hikers from Manhattan at the mid-point of the newly reopened High Bridge, we almost burst at the seams with joy.

For the Joy of All

Since the first Hike the Heights in 2005, we have grown from a health fair with a set of hikes that started and ended by the Highbridge Water Tower. By 2007’s Hike the Heights 3: Giraffe Path we reached all parks along the trail, designating starting points for what we call “seed groups” of hikers, who hike together until converging by the Water Tower. In 2010, we moved the community celebra-tion to the Sunken Playground. Now we are a set of people with a story of restoration that we hope will inspire all who read it. We can rebuild our neighborhoods, for the joy of all!

Lourdes Rodríguez and Joseph Sanchez hug as they meet in the middle of the reopened High Bridge in 2016.

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The importance of walking meetings to CLIMB

Over the years, CRG developed walking meetings as an important learning and practice tool. As a method of data collection, walking meetings offer the opportunity to talk about a space while in it. Imagine being in a meeting room, hosting a focus group, or in an office conducting a key informant interview. If the topic of conversation is a place—a physical space bounded or unbounded, a park, the streets of a city, a playground, a building in reference to its surround-ings—the best way to talk about that place is being in it. Telling a story and pointing at where the action happened; comparing our idea of a place in abstract with the actual physical location; smelling, touching, taking in the atmosphere of a space is easier to do when you are at the site than trying to recreate it in words without a point of reference. In walking together, the storytell-er and the person learning about that story in that context can keep in check assumptions about understanding what somebody means when they talk about a place. We ask better questions, we get a better picture, we learn better!

Walking meetings are a great tool for engagement because of the wiring of our brains and bodies. The brain cells referred to as mirror neurons, first discovered in the 1990s, are said to be responsi-ble for empathy because they respond equally, when we do something and when we see someone else doing the same thing. When we walk and talk together, our pace is matched (try talking to someone who is outpacing you…); our breathing starts to harmonize, our mirror neurons do their thing. What better way to build rapport, deepen a relationship, and create understanding than when we walk together? At the risk of sounding naïve, we think walking together is the best way to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, without literally stepping on them.

Walking meetings offered us a way to mobilize community. At the beginning of our work, when we were selling the ideas behind CLIMB to neighborhood and organizational leaders, one of the challenges faced was the disconnection between the perception people had of many of the spaces we were talking about and the reality. For many longtime residents who had lived through the 1985-1995 violence epidemic in northern Manhattan, parts of our parks were scary spaces to avoid at all costs. The periphery was safe, but venturing in was not encouraged. The reality was that, despite the work that remained (fixing stairs, opening access points), many efforts already in place were not visible. For example, some newly paved trails went unhiked. A lot of the debris from the time the parks were informal junkyards had been cleared, but not many peo-ple knew. When walking and talking with neighbors and organizational leaders we would pose two questions:

• How does what you see compare to your memories of this place (comparing perception and reality)?

• What can you do to use this space more? If an organizational leader, we would ask how programming could be moved out of doors, into the park.

We were also able to promote falling in love. When you fall in love with a place, you long for it and want to visit it. You also fight for it and become involved in making it better—leading to genuine and sustainable community mobilization.

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Photos taken in Highbridge Park during early CLIMB walking meetings. Clockwise from upper left: 1) The Water Tower Terrace stairs before repair 2) A broken lamppost 3) Graffiti under the bridge 4) The area near the entrance to the High Bridge.

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CLIMB —“Helping communities reclaim their parks”

First Draft of Our Mission Statement, January 2005

City Life is Moving Bodies is a northern Manhattan community initiative founded on the belief that safe parks and neighborhoods are essential to community health, and that all communities, regardless of socioeconomic background, are entitled to access to safe parks and neighborhoods. Our purpose is to combat the issues of gang violence, drugs, obesity, sedentary lifestyles, and gentrification by creating a sense of neighborhood and park ownership within our communities. We promote healthy lifestyles by organizing neighborhood walks and various exercise opportunities for residents. Through leadership training, neighborhood cleanups, and trail building, we increase park usability and teach communities to become responsible stewards of their neighborhoods. And by creating partnerships between residents and the public and private sector, we empower residents to reclaim their parks for their families, their neighborhoods, and their futures.

Who we are: City Life is Moving Bodies is a northern Manhattan community initiative.

Our values: We believe that safe parks and neighborhoods are essential to community health, and that all communities, regardless of their socioeconomic background, are entitled to access to safe parks and neighborhoods.

What we do: Combat the issues of gang violence, drugs, obesity, sedentary lifestyles and gentrification; promote healthy lifestyles; increase park usability; teach communities to become responsible stewards of their neighborhoods; and empower residents to reclaim their parks for their families, their neighborhoods, and their futures.

How we do it: By creating a sense of neighborhood and park ownership within our communities; by organizing neighborhood walks and various exercise opportunities for residents; through leadership training, neighborhood cleanups, and trail building; and by creating partnerships between residents and the public and private sectors.

First draft of CLIMB’s mission statement.

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Bringing People Together at the Park

By Joseph Sanchez

I was born and raised in New York City, in Washington Heights. I’m from the neighborhood where the High Bridge is located—lived here since 1972—but I had never known about it until I was hired by the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation in 2004 as the Highbridge Catalyst Co-ordinator. At that time, I was in an interesting place in my career where I was working at the Police Athletic League, but was looking for a new job. I was really passionate about community building, and connecting the Bronx to Manhattan was always something that interested me. Eddie Silverio from Alianza Dominicana had sent me the job description and I had thought it was perfect for me. Apparently, the woman who interviewed me thought the same and I was hired on the spot.

The Parks Department’s Catalyst Project works to stim-ulate, organize, and coordinate community initiatives centered on specific parks. Highbridge Park was my project. The project’s direction heavily relies upon both what is happening in the community, and the Parks Department’s response to the current political climate. We shaped our goals around this and had to be prepared to go with the ebb and flow of the political atmosphere. Some of our objectives included activating the park by bringing in programming and volunteers, raising com-munity awareness about these programs, community building, and supporting other community initiatives. One of these initiatives included the Highbridge Coali-tion that was trying to get the High Bridge reopened.

I started off in this position spending a good six months meeting key players and community leaders, getting to know the elected officials, and conducting research on projects from past and present in order to figure out the approach I should take for this project. During my research I learned there was a movement in 1972 to reopen the bridge and they had a community board meeting in the Bronx about it on September 16 of that year, two days before I was born. I said to myself, “I’m not the first and there have been people that have been trying to open the High Bridge for years—before I was

born.” However, this time with the Parks Department behind us, and Congressman Serrano who had put $5 million toward this project, we had a leg up. Now, it was time to organize. We needed to create programing for the community that would bring people to the park. We needed to get people invested in their neighborhood park in order to get the project going and make the case to reopen the High Bridge.

My strategy was to identify key community leaders on both sides of the bridge, in Manhattan and

Joseph Sanchez, Lourdes Rodríguez and Molly Rose Kaufman sharing a laugh while exploring Highbridge Park.

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the Bronx, and support them. I started joining other coalitions and groups so we could collaborate. I already knew a lot of people on the Manhattan side through living there and my work with Alianza Dominicana, so I started spending a lot of time in the Bronx. Through this, I met Chauncy Young, an excellent community organizer and a key player in the Bronx. He really saw the vision and be-lieved in this project. On the Manhattan side, I was all over the place going to Community Board 12 meetings and joining coalitions, which is how I met Lourdes Rodríguez from CLIMB. She thought the High Bridge project was a great idea and became really passionate about it. It was from there that I joined CLIMB and started participating in the meetings. The idea was to understand other group’s initiatives and support them, and try to get them to understand mine. By doing so, we were able to bring different groups together so they could learn from and support one another.

Once I had identified all the key leaders in both communities, I invited them to join the Highbridge Coalition. Each leader had a different, but equally important perspective on why reopening the High Bridge was critical to the people it would serve. Chauncy was looking at it from an educational perspective and Lourdes was looking at it from a health perspective, which she translated to us very beautifully. I, on the other hand, was looking at it from a physical perspective. I wanted to walk from Manhattan to the Bronx and I wanted the parks to connect. The Highbridge Coalition had previous-ly been made up of mostly Parks people, and so having the community voice present at the coalition meetings forged a collaborative relationship between the Parks Department and the community. This was crucial, because once the community knows that the Parks Department respects and supports them, it empowers the community and provides them with fuel to organize. And on the Parks De-partment’s side, once they know they have support from the community, they become more focused.

We began by creating programming in the parks. We organized volunteers to do park cleanups and we worked with City Parks Foundation to throw concerts and other events. Hike the Heights, organized by CLIMB, was one of these events. Highbridge had never seen a program like Hike the Heights before. It had received its full support from park administrators because of both the credibility that Lourdes and Mindy Fullilove brought with it, being from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and also it being a very sophisticated way of attracting people to the park for a health initiative. The first Hike the Heights event was a great day that attract-ed hundreds of people. If it weren’t for this relationship between the Parks Department and CLIMB that I helped to nurture, Hike the Heights wouldn’t have been possible.

Beyond Hike the Heights, being a part of CLIMB helped me to develop other programming. Lourdes, Columbia students, and I began taking hikes through the park.

Every week we would meet at different places of the park and map out where the best trails were, which were the cleanest, and which needed some work. Once we mapped out the whole area, we re-alized we had a lot of other places to explore. Lourdes said to me, “This should be a program, people should do what we are doing right now, and we should bring people out here.”

Public health student Nelson Saldaña during one of CLIMB’s weekly walks.

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The activities I did with CLIMB made sense to me and it gave me an idea for a program. From there I started doing tours through the park. I organized school groups and other groups to come out and meet me at specific meeting points along the trail. We did it once a week and it became a sort of exercise walking group. Mostly, people were having fun. In the beginning I had kept it very local. I had never thought it would grow to the point where we were going to connect the other Catalyst Projects, such as historical Harlem parks, Jackie Robinson Park, St Nicholas Park, and Marcus Gar-vey Park. It became this whole initiative of connecting northern Manhattan, through its parks, and eventually to the Bronx. It became bigger than us, bigger than Highbridge, bigger than Washington Heights. It brought different activities and people together.

My strategy for community building has always been to join other people’s missions, encourage them, and support them. It’s not about implementing your own ideas. It’s about investing in the community and supporting their initiatives, and then seeing what you can do to bring people togeth-er and create common goals. This creates leadership and it creates sustainability. It is what created the momentum for the reopening of the High Bridge, and it is what has brought Hike the Heights going into its 13th year. You never hear of community programs lasting that long.

Photo was taken during a CLIMB walk through Jackie Robinson Park on a snowy day.

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CLIMB and the First Hike the Heights

By Evelyn Joseph

I was the administrator of the Community Research Group when we started the CLIMB project. I guess I have to say it all began with Mindy Fullilove coming into the office one day af-ter meeting with colleagues and introducing the initial ideas for CLIMB to the staff. And so it began: the discussions around the park trails and how they are all connected. How do we get the community to use these precious trails and also incorporate healthy living? Mindy decided to talk to the Columbia Cen-ter for Children’s Environmental Health, led by Dr. Frederica Perera, to bring her brilliant idea of introducing the commu-nity to the trails and how we should all begin to move. After all, City Life Is Moving Bodies. With the help of the Center for Children’s Environmental Health and Susan Illman, their Project Coordinator, we began to plan this huge event inviting the Center’s cohort of research participants and their families, students, colleagues, vendors, and presenters to come out to a day of hiking and community family time. The Giraffe became the Hike the Heights mascot and giraffe path was born.

So we now had to put together this huge event, an introduction to Highbridge Park and its history. We asked ourselves:

• what was going to happen that day?

• where were folks going to hike from?

• what happens after the hike?

• what is everyone eating?

• how long is the event?

• how are we getting them there?

Well that was a lot to think about. We got the wise advice to focus on one park for the first year. What did we do, we had march captains, volunteers, art along the paths indicating you were going in the right direction, about 6 months of planning, and seeking funding for every little aspect. The first T-shirts had a giraffe and Hike the Heights on it, with a white background. Why this is important I’ll tell you later, LOL.

Promotion for Hike the Heights 1.

Evelyn Joseph with a winner of our “Depict CLIMB” contest at the first Hike the Heights.

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As Mindy worked to identify the paths that we were going to hike, Lourdes and other staff worked on identifying funding and community partners. I worked on day-of activities with Susan and our community health worker Arelis De La O. Susan was a force pushing things through the Columbia University approval system and organizing activities as we kept bringing her layer after layer of event activities.

I suggested that we hire a caterer we previously used for our NY Stop AIDS Conference, Calvin Mumford, who owned Bama Catering. Mr. Mumford agreed to cater a BBQ style fare of hot dogs, beef and turkey hamburgers, chicken, potato salad, rice and peas, salad, and corn on the cob. I believed I knew what folk wanted to have as a meal, thinking of the general community. Of course, this being a health-driven idea of getting folk to move, many of our colleagues did not agree with the food choice, wanting healthier options. There was plenty for everyone and enough choices for folk who wanted healthier choices. We had servers to take care of the more than 200 attendees. We even had free “icees” from two carts for all to enjoy.

In the middle of the festival we sent people out on three hikes. I went on the stroller hike, around the Highbridge Recreation Center, pushing my grandson Johnnie. After the hike we had tours of the Highbridge Tower, music, and arts and crafts activities through-out the plaza part of the park. It was a beautiful day. Everyone was engaged and enjoyed the first Hike the Heights. Of course, that only meant that we had to do something greater and bigger the next year. Which we did: more trails to hike and more colleagues. I was asked what I thought the shirts should look like. I said, “I think we should use blue. It will look great against the green of the park.” We decided to use a family of giraffes on the front of the shirt and a map of the hike trail on the back, making it an interactive shirt. To this day, that is my favorite shirt (not because it was my idea – just saying LOL).

What I loved the most about participating in Hike the Heights is that it always for me centered on getting families to come out, enjoy the space around them, and spend some time with their commu-nity members. It also gave folk a chance to work together on a holistic approach to health, educating without forcing, through fun and community. This reminds me of another CRG project, Family- to-Family, which had similar activities, although Hike the Heights was much larger. In the end all the participants and the collaborators have become family. My family members were participants, volunteers, etc. Of the things I have participated in during my almost 20 years of recovery, Hike the Heights is one of my proud moments, as is Family-to-Family. The fact that it lives on gives me great joy. It is also a testament of the hard work of Drs. Mindy Fullilove and Lourdes Rodríguez in bringing health and community together.

Children from Harlem Children’s Zone hiking in the woods at Hike the Heights 2, wearing the “interactive” blue t-shirt. Happily, one child is modeling the front and another the back!

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Of Giraffes and Geology(Finding CLIMB’s Spirit Animal and Building a 3-D Map of the City)

By Moriah McSharry McGrath

A salient memory I have of the CLIMB project takes place during an afternoon when the offices of the Community Research Group were aflutter with work on promotional materials for the first Hike the Heights event. One of my lovely colleagues breezily proposed a cute flyer to which I had an un-expectedly salty response. I don’t recall the exact flyer, but it had some cheerful portrayal of a happy

family—complete with mom, dad, and two kids. And therein lay the problem: so many families look so different from that stan-dard, yet we are constantly getting messages that those who don’t fit into the Leave it to Beaver fantasy lifestyle are somehow inadequate. My feminist talons came out in the form of a bratty-teenager style lament. My moan of “Do we have to have a heteronormative patriar-chal mascot?!” echoed through the office.

Quickly realizing that whining is not an especially professional way to contribute to a workplace project, I set to searching for alter-native images. This was during the heyday of clip art libraries built into word processing soft-ware, and as I flipped through the on-screen catalog, an adorable giraffe soon presented itself. No one could quibble with gender-less, ageless, raceless explorer with a jaunty backpack . . . and a long neck! “Get it?” I pitched to the office, “We’re in the Heights, and giraffes are up high in the air?” A

mascot was born—or rather, downloaded—and soon we realized that if you squinted a bit you could even convince yourself that Highbridge Park was giraffe-shaped.

This serendipitous moment has catalyzed a lot of creativity over the years, as it is easy to be playful when thinking of a gentle and funny-looking animal like the giraffe. If they lived in New York, I’m sure that giraffes would appreciate our parks, herbivores that they are. CLIMB’s route through Upper

Flyer for Hike the Heights 1.

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Manhattan Parks was christened The Giraffe Path and each year the annual Hike the Heights cele-bration is decorated with a panoply of giraffes designed by young participants in what became one of the largest programs of the non-profit organization Creative Art Works.

Seeing the clip art giraffe on t-shirts and the CLIMB website brings back the memory that moment in our office, an episode emblematic of the ways that I personally thrived at the Community Re-search Group as a research assistant/jack-of-all-trades. The physical environment of the office at first seemed inimical to success, yet I felt excited to go there to kibbitz and create every day. It was a pret-ty creepy building with a deathtrap of an elevator. The ancient grey carpet had surely become one with the floor many years before and the remainder of the color palette was institutional blue and dingy “white.” The few windows were small, translucent, and mostly blocked by balky air condition-ers. I’m not sure if paint, grime, or something more sinister obscured the view; I never dared to ask. We were a motley crew with quite varied life stories, and somehow everyone not only put up with my quirks but also egged me on.

When it came to CLIMB, after the matter of the giraffe was settled, I started to work on interpretive materials for the trail. Stumbling down a rabbit hole on the Internet, I learned all about the tectonic uplifts that forced the sturdy bedrock of Morningside, Hamilton, Washington, and Hudson Heights into place. I was bubbling with factoids about gneiss, granite, and schist and everyone indulged me. This research was fascinating from a scientific perspective, but it also changed my mental map of the city. Traveling in, out, and through the city for decades, the image in my mind centers on Manhattan and its relationship to the mainland and the rest of the islands in the New York archipelago. Strong paths slice the map for train lines, highways around the edges, and of course the waterways that define those edges.

Before doing this project, I was familiar with the bluffs of Upper Manhattan as isolated features in the landscape. And, primarily, they were inconveniences that required minding; for example, the topography of Morningside Heights was seared in my mind after an attempt to reach Columbia University by subway went awry and I ended up on East 116th Street. I hurried across town on foot worried that my clipped pace would not be sufficient to arrive on time to my appointment with an Admissions officer. When I reached Morningside Park and realized that the university lay at the top of the grand staircase I nearly gave up hope. (All’s well that ends well; I managed to matriculate at the university some months later!)

Researching the geology helped me understand that one rock formation serves as the spine for all Upper Manhattan and therefore the edge of many CLIMB parks. With its fortitude much greater than any human engineering, our neighborhoods needed to build around the Manhattan Schist; this same formation has enabled construction of skyscrapers further south in Manhattan. My geology lesson also helped me connect the natural history of the land with the social history of the city. The rock formations were part of the diabolical and hydra-headed system of segregation in New York City. The strong physical separation of rock ridge had abetted urban planning policy that deprived the “flatlands” neighborhoods of Harlem of resources and physically segregated New Yorkers by race. This painful appropriation of the landscape heightened the urgency I felt to help neighbors reengage with their parks. I wanted for these schist walls that have hemmed people in to more readily be seen as soaring invitations to explore our majestic city more.

The Giraffe Path connects communities by encouraging movement through neighborhood parks and charting a new pedestrian-oriented line across the map of Manhattan. For me as an individual,

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plotting the path added relief to the emotional and infrastructural knowledge I had of the city before CLIMB. This three-dimensional map helps me love New York even more, as I marvel at the way a place so singular is also connected to the surrounding region not just socially and economically, but through the rock formations that undergird buildings, open spaces, river valleys, and the harbor floor.

Because I moved away from New York soon after the first Hike the Heights, my connections to CLIMB are rooted more in launching the project than in being in the space over the years. Yet my memory of the path is strong because of the clear map that it enabled me to register in my mind. The relationships with my colleagues have also endured across space and time and so my emotion-al ties are sustained. And certainly the infrastructure of New York remains substantially the same. To me, it all traces back to that one clip art giraffe. I find it fitting that the giraffe has had so many avatars since, because every other person who participates in CLIMB will have their own personal constellation of place and memory that shapes their map of Upper Manhattan.

Arelis De La O and Moriah McSharry McGrath with CLIMB map banner inviting the community to join us for a walk in northern Manhattan parks. The schist in northern Manhattan parks is irresistible to climbers.

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CLIMB Timeline

2004 January CLIMB established as a project of CRG

2005 Spring First Partners Meeting (parks representatives, Catalyst program, local organizations, neighbors) June Hike the Heights 1 Fall CLIMB joined the High Bridge Coalition Fall 2005 – 2006 Walking meetings held every other week

2006 Spring Preliminary situation analysis by urbanism seminar June Hike the Heights 2 July CLIMB Summer (Kenworthy Swift funded youth program) Fall CLIMB 155th Studio (architecture, public health, urban planning, and engineering student collaboration) October National Parks Service technical assistance grant awarded December Screening of CLIMB Summer documentary, Road to Recovery

2007 February CLIMB DoubleTake (OSF funded photo exhibit) June Hike the Heights 3: Giraffe Path 2007 – 12 CLIMB’s Lourdes Rodríguez co-chaired the High Bridge Coalition

2008 June Hike the Heights 4: Happy Birthday, High Bridge!

2009 June Hike the Heights 5: Why I Hike (first year that hikers walk up the Water Tower Terrace stairs!)

2010 Spring First ioby fundraising campaign June Hike the Heights 6 (last year to receive funding from the CDC through the Center for Youth Violence Prevention)

2011 June Hike the Heights 7

2011 – 2013 Parks Project initiative collaboration with Pittsburgh

2012 June Hike the Heights 8

2013 January DesigNYC award March First walking meeting with DesigNYC designers June Hike the Heights 9 (included DesigNYC community engagement activities) October Under the Elevated Workshop with Design Trust for Public Space

2014 May Jane’s Walk: Giraffe Your Way Through the Parks June Hike the Heights 10 (10th anniversary celebration; new map of Giraffe Path distributed)

2015 June Hike the Heights 11

June 10, 2015 The High Bridge reopens after more than 40 years (the week AFTER Hike the Heights!)

2016 June Hike the Heights 12

2017 June Hike the Heights 13

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seCTIon 2: desIgnIng The TraIl

“There is no reason that the CLIMB trail through the heart of northern Manhattan parks isn’t as beautiful as the wonderful trails of Central Park.

Care for the lampposts and pathways is, in my view, a way of demonstrating our respect for human rights.” – Michel Cantal-Dupart

CLIMB has worked to make the CLIMB urban hiking trail by walking, playing, celebrating, and analyzing, as well as by designing. Over the past 13 years, we have been fortunate to partner with talented designers who have contributed to our work. In this section of The CLIMB Chronicles, we focus on designing the CLIMB trail (affectionately known as the Giraffe Path) and how CLIMB has worked with designers and the community to help make the trail.

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Early Design Consultations

Adapted from CLIMB’s 2007 report

A Beginning

CLIMB’s first design consultation was with urban designer Marshall Brown. He visited the parks with Mindy Fullilove, who explained the idea that a hiking trail linking the parks might aid revitalization of the surrounding neighborhoods, including more physical activity and more economic devel-opment. Marshall Brown designed CLIMB’s logo and our first trail map, which focused on connecting Morningside Park, St. Nicholas Park, Jackie Robinson Park, and High-bridge Park.

Examining Barriers

The second design consultation was with an environmental justice class taught by Professor Jason Corburn, then on the faculty of the Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preserva-tion. Students offered to help CLIMB think through the environmental justice issues affecting the trail. In a paper collectively produced by a team of eight students, they focused on getting from Morningside Park to St. Nicholas Park. About half of the peo-ple who they surveyed did not know how to get to St. Nicholas Park or that it even existed. Getting from one park to anoth-er, the students concluded, would require good signage and an interesting, hospitable route. The process they followed —going on walks, documenting notes on maps, interviewing residents, and proposing routes—is the model CLIMB continued to follow over the years. We searched through the parks, trying to understand their complex geography and the chal-lenges that resulted from disinvestment. This searching was such an important part of what we were doing that it became the logo for Hike the Heights 3!

CLIMB’s logo.

CLIMB’s first trail map.

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CLIMB 155th Street Studio

During Hike the Heights 2, CLIMB organizers found it very intimidating to try to get their hikers across the intersection between Jackie Robinson Park and Highbridge Park. CLIMB wondered, “How can we get hikers safely across 155th Street?” A Columbia University urban design studio led by urban design professor Richard Plunz and engineering professor Patricia Culligan took up this question. The students included undergraduates in engineering and graduate students in pub-lic health and urban design. They tackled the question from a number of perspectives and several ideas of interest emerged from the students’ work, including: create a traffic circle at 155th Street; narrow the access road to the Harlem River Drive; use Highbridge Forest to link the corners and highlight green spaces; and link the intersection to the famous Rucker basketball courts located under the Macombs Dam Bridge.

Getting a Giraffe from Paris

Michel Cantal-Dupart is a noted French urbanist who has designed interventions in cities in France, Madagascar, and Tunisia. He has consulted with community groups in Pittsburgh, specif-ically about issues of geographic isolation of minority neighborhoods. During a visit to New York in February 2007, he spent two days walking the CLIMB trail with residents, community leaders, and students. He noted the beauty of the trail and the sense that one was in the country, far from the city. He appreciated parts of the trail that show the exceptional landscape design of architects like Charles Vaux.

In Cantal’s view, the overall splendor of the trail was undermined by several factors. At the top of the list was poor maintenance, especially north of 150th Street. He also pointed out the lack of physical and visual connections from the park to the city. Finally, he showed us many fine details of the parks that were lost in the overgrowth or unappreciated because of maintenance problems.

He said, “Think more holistically about the giraffe you’re trying to create. You focus on the trail, which is the spine or the esophagus, but those internal parts need to be contained within the body of the giraffe. You need to think about the spots of the giraffe, because those are central to con-necting the interior, where the trail is, with the exterior, the city streets. Without those connec-tions, few will have the courage to walk the CLIMB trail. My advice is: make the whole giraffe.”

On his return to Paris, Cantal and members of Atelier Cantal-Dupart studied maps, plans, and documents and proposed “The Giraffe,” which highlighted new aspects of the body of the Giraffe. To create the “Giraffe’s Head,” Cantal extended the original four-park design to include Fort Tryon Park. As a French visitor, he pointed out that the Cloisters Museum inside Fort Tryon Park has an international reputation, but little else in northern Manhattan is included in the guidebooks. By this extension, we open the area to local, national, and international visitors.

Cantal also highlighted the concept of “Giraffe Spots,” areas that are links between the city streets and the interior of the park. These spots range from small overlooks that can open visual connec-tions to collapsing stairs that might provide alternative routes for moving in the city.

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The Giraffe: “The City that Walks.”

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The Giraffe: “Reconnecting the Parks.”

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Manhattan’s Cliffside Parks and The Urbanist’s Challenge

By Michel Cantal-Dupart(Translated from the French by Robert E. Fullilove, III)

My work with the Giraffe and the CLIMB project begins with an understanding of land, history, and man’s relationship to the land. I think specifically in this case about the organization of Man-hattan and the way in which Harlem is connected to other parts of the island of Manhattan and its rivers. There’s a downtown, an uptown, there’s Columbia University for example, there are the neighborhoods of the poor and the rich, and there is this pattern of how they are all connected and how they are set apart.

The parks are an especially interesting part of this pattern of connection and separation. It is not easy to go from one Manhattan park to another. There is Central Park and then all of these other smaller community parks. The team put together by Lourdes and Mindy worked with a number of organizations and associations that are concerned with the parks to figure out how to organize and link these disparate community parks together. It was a lot like the game of croquet where one has a widely spaced set of wickets but the game, the goal, is to smack a little ball through each of them.

But how to do this? That was the question that Mindy raised when she telephoned me and asked if we couldn’t develop a Cantalian system (a system displaying an urbanist organization “a la methode Cantal-Dupart”) for tying these parks together. So I came in 2007 in the winter to help set this all up.

First, there was the problem of the breach. There are breaches among the parks and between the parks and the surrounding neighborhoods. There were issues of accessibility and the ways in which some parks were easily accessible and some were not. And there was the question of the cliffs. I had dealt with cliffs in my work in the French city of Pau, when the urbanist’s challenge was to put into perspective a city with ravines on the one hand and the magnificent Pyrenees on the other hand. The

challenge I faced there was similar to the chal-lenge Mindy posed to me: How to link the disparate elements together and provide magnificent views from Manhattan’s cliffside parks?

This was the question I had when I arrived in New York on a very, very cold day in winter. How does one work with a city that has Central Park on the one hand and a series of

Cantal and CLIMB members in Highbridge Park in February 2007.

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smaller, loosely linked together parks on the other? The parks, as seen in Harlem, showed a curious pattern of exclusion. There was often one part of a neighborhood park that had gates and openings providing access to the lower part of the neighborhood to the park but with closed-off access to the upper part of the neighborhood. Or, if the upper part of the park was accessible, then the lower part would be closed. These points of access determined who got to enjoy the park. Thus, if the opening to the park was in the upper level, those living in that section of the neighborhood were most likely to enjoy the green open spaces that the park provided. If, on the other hand, it was the lower park that had openings, then it was the people in that area of the neighborhood that would most profit from the park’s attractions.

That day in winter, we were able to see this pattern of use and exclusion as reflected in park users’ footsteps that were left in the snow from a recent storm. By following the footprints, you could see the patterns of access demonstrating how people entered a park, how people left it, and how these patterns were all tracing the connections or lack thereof between the park and its neighboring com-munities. The problem therefore was to link these various sections of the park together as a way of also linking disparate, often separated sections of the neighborhood and the community.

Secondly, there was the system of streets surrounding these parks. There is traffic on the streets that follow along the contours of the park, but it was also important to pay attention to the other streets, one block removed, that ran parallel to the park. With Harlem’s urban parks—that were often narrow and lacked a lot of breadth—connecting these adjacent streets provided access to the buildings and the commerce that were there. Making those connections, in effect, widened the park by joining it to the other key elements of the neighbor-hood.

And finally, there was the question of access. There were many instanc-es in which the access points to the parks were blocked by a variety of encumbrances, closing off passages that bridged or linked one part of the neighborhood to another through the park. There were entrances blocked by overgrown vegetation, steps that were inaccessible, and places where junk littered access points and made them impassable. These created areas of ex-clusion that functioned to close off one section of a community to the other.

Hikers at Hike the Heights 8 climb the staircase near 155th Street.

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Many of the barriers that existed to separate one park from another seemed impassable. But the big-gest of these impasses—the problem that most concerned Mindy and Lourdes—was created by the difficulty of crossing the very busy and dangerous 155th Street, at the beginning of a bridge to the Bronx. This was an important barrier between the top end of Harlem’s Jackie Robinson Park and the beginnings of Washington Heights’ Highbridge Park. “How do we make that crossing safe?” they asked.

This was an interesting question, because the solution allowed us to address another area of exclu-sion, the area under the bridge, which connected to Jackie Robinson Park along Edgecombe Avenue. By going under the bridge, the hikers avoided the dangerous 155th Street crossing and they brought attention to the area under the bridge, integrating back into the landscape. A set of stairs that ran alongside the Polo Grounds Towers (an NYC Housing Authority development) allowed hikers to climb up to Highbridge Park.

The history of New York is full of examples of people being pushed from one area of the city to another by creating zones of exclusion by both formal and informal barriers. The most important element of the work I have done over the years with Mindy and her team has been to focus the tools of urbanism to combat patterns of exclusion.

In my work, there are two kinds of urbanism: an urbanism that is connected to real estate and prop-erty (urbanism mobilière) and an urbanism that is largely cultural in its focus (urbanism culturel). When urbanism is viewed from the standpoint of property, buildings, and all that is connected to what is built and how, the key questions are where to build and where not to build, what can we buy and what can be sold? Cultural urbanism is on a human scale. It privileges people and their relation-ships to one another; it creates conditions of conviviality and expands opportunities for communica-tion between and among residents of a community. It emphasizes the public space, where people pass

one another and begin to make connections, to get to know one another and to create conviviality.

The important point is that, by opening closed areas, by advocat-ing for repairs that create access, and by moving through spaces that are abandoned and have become dangerous, the CLIMB project takes apart the machine of exclusion in northern Manhat-tan, creating a city that can move freely, the true goal of democracy.

The John T. Brush stairs connected the Polo Grounds and Edgecombe Avenue, but had fallen into despair, as seen here. The stairs were restored with contributions from all the major league teams that had played in the Polo Grounds and reopened in 2015.

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DesigNYC: Mapping the Giraffe Path

In early 2013, CLIMB was selected by the nonprofit DesigNYC to be matched with pro bono designers to help us make a new map of the Giraffe Path. Starting in February with a walking meeting along the trail, CLIMB and the team of designers (Kaja Kühl, Aki Ishida, and Lynnette Widder) worked together for a year to engage the community and produce a map.

Aki and Lynnette focused on de-sign strategies to engage residents to contribute to the mapmaking. They helped us to organize charettes, including a large one at Hike the Heights 9 (described by Lynnette below), and to formulate new outreach strategies.

Kaja and her team focused on how we could use signage and other design features to help move peo-ple along the trail, as well as on the design for our beautiful new map. The finished product, which was printed in time for distribution at the 10th annual Hike the Heights in 2014, highlights special features in each park and includes input from local residents.

Mobile, Mutable: CLIMB and Hike the Heights 9

By Lynnette Widder

Describing the nature of mapping, the French critic of technology Bruno Latour relates a story about La Pérouse, an 18th century French naval officer. On his travels, La Pérouse landed on a seashore and wanted to know whether he had arrived on an island or peninsula. His interlocutor drew him a map in the sand, accurate but ephemeral; La Pérouse transferred the map to his sketchbook. With that act, he transformed native knowledge—mutable and unique—into a mapped entity that could be transported intact across boundaries to serve the purposes of a colonial Empire. The map is, by Latour’s definition, the immutable mobile par excellence.

Our DesigNYC team and CLIMB activists set out to walk the trail at the start of the project to design a new map of the Giraffe Path.

Comments, stories, and ideas were added to this large chalk map of the Giraffe Path at Hike the Heights 9.

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In 2013, my collaborator Aki Ishida and I were selected by the not-for-profit DesigNYC to work with CLIMB and Kaja Kühl to develop a new map of the “Giraffe Path,” a hiking trail that con-nected northern Central Park to Highbridge Park across the Manhattan Formation escarpment. The project was meant to mark the transition, through advocacy and redesign, of a notional path defined by the movement of people, to an acknowledged easement of walking and biking paths. That transi-tion was a victory for CLIMB: acting upon the premise that community interaction with parks and open spaces as connectors could heal the city, CLIMB had helped to reintroduce new constituencies to the park. Years of disinvestment became an opportunity to create a new, wilder, less manicured, more communal park path that could do justice to the complex neighborhoods and infrastructural knots it crossed.

Aki and I wanted to help CLIMB to use the annual hike as a laboratory to document the path as seen by participants in Hike the Heights. Participant comments, written on construction paper “thought bubbles” which were photographed on site and, via internet, later geocoded, provided the basis for understanding what the constituents liked or wished for, and where they had enjoyed or wanted it. A large chalked map, drawn on the pavement where the hikers converged, served as a canvas for more comments, stories and sketches. The result tried hard to occupy the middle ground that Latour skipped, between the drawing in the sand and the sketch in the notebook—capturing knowledge and sharing it, while holding on to the spontaneity and inclusion that CLIMB had cultivated.

Hikers share their ideas about the parks along the Giraffe Path on “thought bubbles” at Hike the Heights 9.

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Right: CLIMB at the DesigNYC exhibition in October 2013.

Below: After gathering thoughts during Hike the Heights 9, the designers assembled them on this map to help us make the final map design.

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HIKE THE HEIGHTS!

Giraffe Path

Giraffe Path incomplete

Stairs on the Giraffe Path

Other Trails

Park Entrance

Entrance with Stairs

Subway Entrances

Legend

Restrooms

Water Fountain

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Meet the Parks of Northern Manhattan along the Rock Cliffs of the Giraffe Path

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The Cloisters

John T. Brush Stairway

Morris Jumel Mansion

High Bridge

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Jackie Robinson Bandshell

Hamilton Grange

St. John the Divine

Morningside Park

Morningside Park

St. Nicholas Park

Jackie Robinson Park

Central Park

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Highbridge Park

Fort Tryon Park

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with the support of desigNYC,

Partnerships for Parks and

Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez

New York City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez

Bobby ThomsonNY Giants

Babe RuthNY Yankees

Jackie Robinson Brooklyn Dodgers

Willie MaysNY Giants

Croton Aqueduct

High Bridge

Delaware Aqueduct

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HARLEM RIVER PARKWAY

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CLIMBCLIMB (City Life Is Moving Bodies) promotes physical, social, and civic activity in the com- munities of northern Manhattan. We encourage you to use what we call the Giraffe Path—an urban hiking trail that connects six dramatically beautiful parks. They are formed of a long steep cliff carved by glaciers thousands of years ago.

Every year, on the first Saturday in June, we celebrate the parks with “Hike the Heights.” This event brings thousands of people—and several hundred hand-crafted giraffes!—to explore the riches of these cliffside parks. We created this map to introduce you to the Giraffe Path, to invite you to Hike the Heights, and encourage you to explore northern Manhattan parks on your own. Join us by becoming an ambassador for urban hiking, and help close the gap in the path.

www.hiketheheights.orgwww.facebook.com/HikeTheHeights

THE CLOISTERSSituated in Fort Tryon Park, the Cloisters Museum is a branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. It houses a collection of nearly 2,000 pieces of internationally renowned medieval art and architecture as well as a sequence of gardens planted according to information in medieval treatises and poetry.

An immersive experience, the museum itself was built to incorporate actual elements from medieval cloisters in Europe. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. donated the collection and the land that is today Fort Tryon Park and its magnificent Heather Garden. He also bought and donated 700 acres of the New Jersey Palisades across the Hudson River specifically to preserve the spectacular view from the Cloisters and the park surrounding it.

SWINDLER COVESwindler Cove was once a dump—literally, with tons of garbage, rusted-out cars, sunken boats and construction debris deforming it and the adjacent Sherman Creek shoreline. Billy Swindler, a city garden advocate, brought it to the attention of the New York Restoration Project in 1990. Together with the Parks Department, they transformed the place and named it after Swindler, who died of AIDS in 1997. Today it hosts an outdoor classroom providing a wide spectrum of environmental programming for youth from the neighborhood, and is an oasis of natural habitat that accommodates a series of ponds, saltwater marshes, a Children’s Garden and boathouse.

HIGHBRIDGE FORESTThe steep slopes of Highbridge Park prohibited widespread farming or development, and since much of the land was never cleared, native plants have survived here to this day. Other non-native species such as hawthorn, Siberian elm, and Norway maple were planted as ornamentals in landscaped areas of the park. As a result, Higbridge Park is home to an astounding variety of trees, providing a unique urban forested habitat for migratory birds.

Some non-native plants are invasive and threaten the balanced growth of the forest. Several organizations are actively engaged with the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation to remove harmful plants. You can help restore this habitat by joining them as a volunteer.

HIGH BRIDGEA city needs clean water to thrive and the Old Croton Aqueduct was once New York City's major source of drinking water. Built between 1839 and 1842, it was used until 1959. Water travelled along the aqueduct for 41 miles from the Croton Dam and reservoir in Westchester County to 42nd Street in Manhattan—entirely by gravity and the force added by the Highbridge Water Tower.

Designed by John B. Jervis, the engineer of the Erie Canal, it was built according to the same principles as ancient Roman aqueducts. Today, you can even follow the historic path of the water along the Old Croton Aqueduct Trail and over the newly-restored car-free High Bridge that connects Manhattan and the Bronx.

THE POLO GROUNDSThe Polo Grounds were home to many famous New York baseball and football teams during the first half of the 20th century. The stadium was originally built for the New York Giants in 1890.

In 1913 the Giants built the John T. Brush Stairway to connect the top of Coogan’s Bluff to the Polo Grounds. The staircase was restored in 2013 with help from Major League Baseball, the Giants, the Yankees, the Mets and the Jets—all teams that played at the Polo Grounds at one time or another. The staircase allows us to imagine stepping down the steep escarpment to the ticket booth, and feel the excitement of fans in anticipation of the fierce competition of the games.

HAMILTON GRANGE

Hamilton Grange is a majestic National Memorial to Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton was the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury and thus an important figure in the financial health of the country. He originally built this house in 1802 on a 32-acre estate and named it "The Grange" after his father's ancestral home in Scotland.

He lived here only for two years. In 1804 he was fatally wounded in a pistol duel with his political rival Aaron Burr. Today, you can visit the Grange and learn more about its influential owner and what it was like to live during the time of the founding of the United States. And check out his portrait on the 10-dollar bill!

MORNINGSIDE PARK PONDIn 1968, student and community protesters halted Columbia University’s construction of a gymnasium in Morningside Park. The project was designed with an entrance at the bottom for the Harlem community to use a dedicated facility and a separate entrance at the top for Columbia students to use the main facility. After the project was halted, the excavated foundation remained a scar in the ground for 20 years until it was converted into a naturalistic pond and waterfall in 1990.

Today this “accidental” treasure is a much-loved habitat for a growing population of animals: you might see mallard ducks, snow-white egrets, sparrows, turtles, and frogs.

Giraffe Path Marker, 2011

Student Protest, 1968

Burr-Hamilton Duel, 1804

Coogan’s Bluff, 1908

High Bridge, 1940

Inwood Marble

Manhattan Schist

Snow-white Egret

Pet Turtle

Mallard Duck

Canada Goose

Black LocustSycamore SassafrasSiberian Elm

Plants of Highbridge Forest

Poison IvyGum Tree

Kaja Kühl and her team worked with CLIMB to design this map. One side of the map shows the complete trail and highlights the parks and sites along the way, while the other side provides more information about key features.

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seCTIon 3: spreadIng The Word

“CLIMB Summer was an environment where we as teens were heard, protected, and encouraged. Our words held weight and were always being

taken into consideration.” – Havanna Fisher

In addition to Hike the Heights, CLIMB has engaged with the neighborhoods, parks, and the trail and has helped to spread the word in a variety of ways over the years. In this section of The CLIMB Chronicles, we focus on CLIMB Summer and the film Road to Recovery, CLIMB DoubleTake, presenting & teaching CLIMB, and other walks through the parks and neighborhoods along the Giraffe Path.

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One Hot Summer: Reflections on CLIMB Summer

By Molly Rose Kaufman, Kiara Nagel, and Havanna Fisher

Background

The summer of 2006 was hot and we spent a lot of it outside on the CLIMB trail. Using a youth-led process, we explored the ecological, social, and political histo-ry of the parks and created a documentary entitled, Road to Recovery. The goal was for teenagers from the neighborhoods along the trail, Harlem, the Bronx, and Washington Heights, to explore the area and learn about ecology, science, sociology, community organiz-ing, and filmmaking and then to produce a movie. In six weeks. We experienced the parks as neighborhood resources and investigated the roots of the disinvest-ment visible on every hike. We visited scholars, film-makers, and park rangers. We did trail cleanup in Jack-ie Robinson Park on a hundred degree day and later watched a documentary in an air-conditioned theater as a reward. At the end of our studies, each of our six youth leaders wrote and produced a segment of the film. We worked with professional documentary filmmakers to shoot and edit and we debuted the film at a festival in Highbridge Park.

Reflections

The following personal reflections are by the CLIMB Summer program directors, Molly Rose Kaufman and Kiara Nagel, and Havanna Fisher, a youth leader in the program. CLIMB Summer was over ten years ago, but the experience has shaped our subsequent work and ongoing collabo-rations. The summer on the trail was formative in defining and strengthening our commitment to youth-led, place-based community organizing.

Molly Rose Kaufman

When we designed the CLIMB Summer program I was captivated by the idea that there was so much we could learn by studying these four New York City parks from every angle. From ecology to the intersection of racism and city planning, I sensed that we could come to understand all of the forces that were shaping our present day. Now I direct the University of Orange, a free people’s school where we say, “the city is our university,” so that work is still very resonant for me.

There is so much more I learned that summer, however. I learned the wisdom that young people have to share about their neighborhoods and cities. I learned that for an authentic engagement process, Kiara and I had to create the space for the young people to excel. Kiara taught me that if the youth were not thriving that was our fault and not theirs. If they were failing, we were failing, not them. And we better make a better plan. I learned about radical trust in the process and in each other.

When the time came to plan the movie script, Kiara and I drove the youth to my parents’ house in

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New Jersey. We left them alone in the barn with chart paper and instructions. We were on an incred-ibly tight timeline and budget and we were trusting 15-18 year olds with plotting out the final days of our program and with planning our final product. We grilled them burgers while they worked. At the end of the day they had an outline and a work plan.

It wasn’t easy getting to that point. We worked every day to make sure our team trusted themselves and each other and had access to the information they needed. We connected them to adult mentors, creat-ed elaborate scavenger hunts, and wrote anonymous love notes. But when the time came, we let them go. We wanted the movie to tell the stories they chose and reflect their voices. There is a sweet spot between structure and openness and that is where the magic happens as we saw that day in the barn.

Havanna Fisher

So much of who I am was brought out that summer. I grew up watching my mother speak out on many issues that we faced as a family in Harlem. One of the most empowering things I witnessed was seeing her organize all of the tenants in my building to take the building away from our slum landlord. Every step of the way I was there. At the time I didn’t know how dynamic it was. We col-lectively took our own destiny into our hands and brought a vision into fruition.

Having had that experience, I was filled with delight when Molly and Kiara popped the question: “How do you imagine your community in the future?” The question itself not only excited and engaged our imaginations but it got the ball rolling quickly for creating content for our film.

The first thing that comes to mind when I think about CLIMB Summer was how hot it was. We were outside almost every single day. In the beginning of the program, at least twice a day we made comments infused with teenage dramatic expression about the extreme heat and the effect it could have on us. Molly and Kiara never bought any of our excuses and replied with “We’ll buy you water.” As you can imagine, that water came in handy.

Almost everyday we were outside in a different park with a new adventurous task. We all began to see and experience our community differently. It was the first time I paid close attention to how some ar-eas of our parks were neglected. The parks not being 100% fixed didn’t change their value or useful-ness to those in the community. One day we did a park clean-up and we found some of the strangest things you can imagine. We had a contest to see who could find the weirdest item. I found a child’s cell phone toy, which helped me bring home the win.

Being in the parks was the most relaxing part of the experience. Trees gave us refuge from the scorching sun and sprinklers meant many of our breaks were filled with water fights and laughter. In between exploring the parks we researched history. When I learned about Columbia University’s since abandoned plans to build a segregated gym inside of Morningside Park, I was in a rage. That story helped me put Harlem’s current situation into perspective. We were given roles to help us de-velop the film and mentors that actually had those roles as careers. I was the political organizer. I developed a plan to occupy the High Bridge to get the city to fix it up and reopen it.

CLIMB Summer was an environment where we as teens were heard, protected, and encouraged. Our words held weight and were always being taken into consideration. Even small comments like how cool it would be to end the summer by going to Six Flags mattered. Molly and Kiara arranged for us to go to Six Flags at the end of the program. I will never forget Trevor Brown’s excitement; it was his first time ever going.

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Kiara Nagel

I spent a lot of time on the ground in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina as part of my thesis work for a Masters degree in Urban Planning at MIT. I identified what I called “preda-tory planning” and what Naomi Klein would come to expertly articulate as Disaster Capitalism. I was deeply affected by the trauma and exclusion I witnessed and I became disillusioned by the role academic and planning practitioners were playing in the larger process of dispossession.

When one of my best friends said, “Do you want to come co-create a youth summer program where young people make a movie about their parks and neighborhoods?” I said yes. I saw it as an opportunity to work in ways that were healing, restorative, and creative. I didn’t know at the time that participating in CLIMB Summer would be a gift to my own life’s work solidify-ing a deep commitment to participatory planning and healthy urban ecology.

The idea was to produce, plan, and shoot a documentary in six weeks while simultaneously designing and running a summer youth program. Molly and I committed to a youth-led process and our collaboration around a practice of youth urbanism was born. Our friendship was already rooted in such sound urbanist practices as delight in good walks, eats and drinks, participatory action research, and genuine love of people, stories, and community events. Through CLIMB Summer we had the amazing opportunity to implement our ideas with the full support of Community Research Group. We called upon our friends and network to support and contribute, we connected existing partners, and we ran an outreach and recruitment process that resulted in the most incredible group of young people coming together from each of the different neighborhoods along the trail to make this film.

Every day was full of hikes, interviews, and observing and documenting our process. Molly and I reflected on each day, reviewed our progress and pedagogy, and used emergent design strategies. Our expectation was that we would produce an excellent outcome in terms of the film and the impact of the process on the young people. We sometimes made difficult choices to protect the young people’s creative potential and voice in the process. Anyone we brought in to the project had to understand that the young people were telling this story about their place and that they were in charge of each shoot and storyline.

In their relationship to the parks, their neighbors, and each other, the youth had the capacity to tell the whole story of their neighborhood and city and actually change the future. I think at some point along the way they realized this also. You can tell when you watch the film. That is what I am most proud of in this whole project.

Four Practices of CLIMB Summer

In the winter of 2017 we spent time reflecting on what we learned in the summer of 2006 and what lessons have stayed with us. Here are four lessons that guide and inform our urbanism and organiz-ing practices today:

The youth of CLIMB Summer produced the film Road to Recovery.

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1. Past, Present, and Future

“In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.”

– The Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy

Indigenous teachings bring us the rule of seven generations to consider how decisions and actions will affect our descendants seven generations into the future. We are faced with the legacy of decades

of development centered around dis-possession, genocide, and removal. This dominant form of development relies on the false assumption of a blank slate, the notion that there was nothing or no one there before. The first assumption in our urbanism practice is that there is always a past. How we use a particular place today is largely shaped by the past and how we interact with this place is what shapes its future tomorrow. We are always in past present and future in any given place at any given time. The presence of youth voices in public life inherently links the past and the future. Connecting them to their history builds power in their will and confidence in their action. CLIMB

Summer required the young people to seek out and uncover the history of the places they frequent in their daily lives and from there to imagine and create alternate futures.

2. Power and Participation

“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” – Jane Jacobs

Designing for engagement requires analyzing power dynamics in every situation and creating space for people to interact in new ways. That can mean consideration for language interpretation, provid-ing childcare and good snacks, and utilizing effective tools for documenting and sharing back infor-mation. Reknitting and repairing places requires weaving capacity. All processes can be restorative. Finding our individual voice politicizes our engagement, but working together builds power and allows our efforts to scale as big as our visions for change.

3. Imagination as pedagogy

“Imagination takes away fear and makes us invincible. Our imagination makes it possible.” – Havanna Fisher

We built fun and play into the design of the CLIMB Summer program. Our use of imagination and gamification expanded the possibilities, addressed trauma, and maintained endurance. Our games gave us courage to try things that seemed impossible, to imagine boldly, and to work together to get it all done on deadline. The CLIMB Summer youth leaders were studying the legacy of structural

Noah Binham, Kiara Nagel, Ira Blanchard, Molly Rose Kaufman and Havanna Fisher at the end of CLIMB Summer Party.

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Youth from a local softball league helping with parks clean-up on “It’s My Park Day 2010”.

inequality while simultaneously translating that analysis into story, creative intervention, and action, all this in 100 degree heat! This would not have been possible without games. When we play we are powerful and we can imagine even in the face of the impossible.

4. Youth Urbanism is the Plug

The Plug is a term used to describe someone who is a resource for obtaining something valuable that would otherwise be difficult to obtain. – Urban Dictionary

When you want to know how a place is doing, ask the young people. Youth urbanism asks us to go beyond incorporating the voices of young people and asks instead for a long-term investment in their de-velopment and a commitment to their right to their place. One of the original stars of Road to Recovery has shared her reflections here, but we do not know where all of the others have gone. Have rising costs forced them out of their neighborhoods and homes? We must use all of our resources to support local youth to prosper in their own communities and be vigilant that our efforts don’t lead to their eventual displace-ment. If we seek to sustain the place, we must ensure we tend to the roots and celebrate the flowers.

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CLIMB DoubleTake

Adapted from CLIMB’s 2007 report

While walking through the parks of northern Manhattan, CLIMB participants could see the visible scars from the lack of funding and they had heard stories about the horrors of the parks. CLIMB DoubleTake (2007) showed the astounding beauty of places that most people though of as “off-limits.”

CLIMB DoubleTake was funded by the Open Society Institute’s Documentary Photography Project, which supported the use of photography to shape public perception and effect social change. The project proposed to display photo banners around northern Manhattan to help people 1) understand New York City’s landscape of exclusion and 2) consider creating an inclusive future. Photographers Rojelio Rodríguez and Rodrick Wallace captured the hope and beauty of the parks to share with all.

CLIMB DoubleTake was a traveling exhibit that consisted of 25 banner-sized photographs. Each photo banner was accompanied by a brief narrative description to provide context. The exhibit traveled to many sites in northern Manhattan ranging from one-day outdoor events to month-long engagements.

These photo banners got people talking. They took viewers “there” in a safe way, which was very important, since many of these spaces had the reputation of being dangerous, like the haunted house on the hill. These images helped to create awareness; foster caring for these spaces; and help people make the connection between the social injustice and the processes and policies that led to the aban-donment of parks.

CLIMB DoubleTake reminded us that these beautiful, neglected spaces, which offer so much hope, also require that we fight for long-term residents’ right to stay in their homes and neighborhoods. At the same time, the neighborhoods were starting to emerge from years of disinvestment, flipping into hot, new areas for the wealthy to live. CLIMB DoubleTake addressed the “squeeze-out” of the long-term residents, who might not have enough money to be able to afford their own neighborhoods.

In 2007, six photo banners with images of the parks were presented to northern Manhattan residents during a community mobilization conference. When a picture of an enchanting forest trail was iden-tified as part of Highbridge Park, a gasp of disbelief was uttered. A picture of stairs in disrepair was shown and Rodrick Wallace, one of the photographers, posed the question: “When they are fixed, who will walk on these stairs?”

Silence followed.

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The photos of CLIMB DoubleTake.

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Presenting CLIMB

CLIMB regularly presented our work at conferences and meetings. The poster below was presented at the American Public Health Association in 2009.

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Teaching CLIMB

By Mindy Thompson Fullilove

Our team, the Community Research Group, of New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University (which we eventually renamed the Cities Research Group), conducted years of fieldwork that documented the dire state of health in poor communities in American cities. During our field-work, it was impossible to miss the setting or the struggles that accompanied these health problems. People were living in neighborhoods that looked like the aftermath of the apocalypse, filled with boarded-up buildings, vacant lots, illegal dumped trash, and suffering people, who felt the threat of their surroundings at all times. What was also clear was that the popular targeted public health pro-grams failed to address the scale and the context of the problems, which were the real sources of ill health. Indeed, these structural processes were often, literally, ruled “out-of-bounds” for public health conversations. It was common for leaders of programs to say, “We can’t do anything about [name a structural factor] so therefore we’ll focus on specific, actionable items.”

It was our argument that this was not helpful to the people we served, but we had to admit we didn’t have a better idea. Happily, at a 1993 conference in Paris entitled Colloque Triville: AIDS, Home-

lessness, and Substance Abuse, I met the French urbanist, Michel Cantal-Dupart. In the opening address, he averred that when there were serious problems in neighborhoods, the answer was to be found in the organization of the city. He became my mentor, and all of us learned about cities by traveling with him to see interventions in many parts of France. He came to the US to work with us on our projects in Pittsburgh and Orange, NJ. He also consulted with us on the development of Giraffe Path.

As CLIMB grew, and we came to under-stand the parks and neighborhood better, the project became an important part of the teaching we offered to students at the Mailman School of Public Health at Co-lumbia University. Our CLIMB project offered an excellent setting for student engagement. It allowed them to build their community organizing muscles and strengthened their capacity for humility. CLIMB was led by a neighborhood consensus group that made decisions in

Lourdes Rodríguez teaching urbanism students about the parks.

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regular meetings, facilitated by Dr. Lourdes Rodríguez. Students could participate in the CLIMB Consensus Group, and even take on leadership of our signature annual event, Hike the Heights, a one-day group walking tour of the parks in Manhattan’s upper west side, without disturbing the careful processing that the group followed.

We aligned our Urbanism and the Built Environment Track in the master of public health program with CLIMB, and used two of our courses—the Emerging Issues in Urbanism Seminar and Urban Space and Health—to teach and carry out specific CLIMB-related activities. Students led giraffe making, organized a Jane Walk (see below), planned and carried out a Girls’ Sports Night, and raised money to support Coach Dave and Team Dreamers. Some of the students were so engaged in these projects that they decided to work with the Consensus Group, assuming important service positions. A number of them have shared their experiences in this book.

We believe that the opportunity to participate in community change over time—seeing how con-nections lead to power, lead to improvements—is the heart of great urbanism pedagogy and what we aspired to provide our students. Our students learned that collaboration is key and that strong part-nerships grow over the years. This is the heart of what we hoped that they might see and experience. We believe that anyone who has been through a process of change comes to have faith that change is possible. While they might not have all the skills they need to make change, they have the basic belief in change that city-makers need if we are to move from fracture to restoration.

Joseph Sanchez explaining the High Bridge and the Croton Aqueduct to students.

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Connecting People and Getting Bodies Moving

By Tamara Michel

CLIMB was one of the best things about graduate school. It was one intervention that simultaneously connected people (from several neighborhoods, but also across age, language, ability, life experience, area of expertise, and any other of the many categories that usually separates us), while getting bodies moving through the city’s extraor-dinary parks to introduce us to our environments and neighbors. As a student, CLIMB was the only way I recall regularly inviting professors, students, neighborhood leaders, and residents alike to come togeth-er. CLIMB taught me important lessons about public health in a way that was clear and simple, yet profound. Of course, you need to

study epidemiology and learn all the important theories, but if you want to develop a path, you need to walk. And if you want a path that’s accessible to someone pushing a stroller, make sure that there’s a baby helping you build the trail.

CLIMB was also personal. It was a huge endeavor, but it mostly felt like playing. At times, we were literally exploring an untouched forest. As a twenty-two year old introvert, straight out of college, moving from Central New York to New York City with no real social network except for my gradu-ate school cohort, CLIMB also helped provide a social niche. While I enjoyed walking the trail in its entirety and exploring all the different parks, Highbridge was immediately my favorite. Maybe it was my bias to my own neighborhood? CLIMB introduced me to Highbridge Park and the Highbridge Recreation Center, where I got to volunteer as a tutor. I wasn’t at the Mailman School of Public Health long before I realized how badly I needed to connect with my new neighborhood and com-munity outside of school. And instead of reading at the library, I could sit in the even-quieter and more peaceful park.

One of my biggest NYC thrills was, eight years after graduation, planning a big day: a visit from Queens to northern Manhattan to re-walk the CLIMB trail, and for my first time, walk over the High Bridge in celebration of its long-awaited, momentous reopening. During that urban hike, I understood that the hard work of so many people was finally coming to fruition. Voices were heard and important needs were realized. Public health success is not only measured through traditional evaluation measures. There are other ways, like people getting across the water to the place they needed to go.

Tamara Michel (white sweatshirt) with urbanism students and parks department staff on a wintry hike through Jackie Robinson Park.

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Jane’s Walk

In 2014, the Emerging Issues in Urbanism Seminar of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health focused on the organization of community events, using Lawrence Halprin’s RSVP cycles. The students developed this score for a Jane’s Walk. Celebrated in over 200 cities worldwide, Jane’s Walk is an annual festival of walking tours that honors the legendary urban activist Jane Jacobs. This Jane’s Walk was the first complete organized walk from one end of the Giraffe Path to the other!

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Highbridge Park Walk

Paul Kittas, an active member of the CLIMB Consensus Group, became a great student of the Giraffe Path. He learned the history of its many parts, especially where it runs over the old Croton Aqueduct. He developed an app and offered hiking tours of the area, such as the one advertised on the flyer below.

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seCTIon 4: plannIng hIke The heIghTs

“Hike the Heights is my favorite day of the year!” – A child from Concrete Safaris

Hike the Heights, CLIMB’s flagship event, is an annual hike and celebration in northern Manhattan parks. This event invites neighbors of all ages to meet the parks along the Giraffe Path and to enjoy a community party that combines physical activity, art, food, and fun.

In this section of The CLIMB Chronicles, we focus on the details and stories of planning for this community potluck party.

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Planning the Party!

A lot of planning and work has gone into making Hike the Heights a suc-cess over the years. Below are some key items and tips that can serve as an out-line for planning the event. Please note that while these things have worked well in the past, nothing is set in stone and Hike the Heights has changed every year!

✔ Hike the Heights is held on the first Saturday of June. This is National Trails Day, so be sure to register Hike the Heights as an event on the National Trails Day website.

✔ As mentioned, the CLIMB Consensus Group organizes Hike the Heights. The consensus group is composed of a diverse group of individuals and organizational representatives. While some members have worked on Hike the Heights for years, others have come and gone, and new people and organizations should be brought in every year.

− TIP: In addition to engaging previous organizers, reach out to other organizations working in the neighborhoods along the CLIMB trail to invite them to participate.

✔ Designate co-chairs to help drive the event, organize meetings, and coordinate logistics.

− Please see “Hike the Heights Co-chair Experiences” in this section of The CLIMB Chronicles from Celeste Russell, Angela Allard, and Lourdes Rodríguez.

✔ Designate committees to lead various aspects of the event. The organization of committees has changed from year to year, but past committees have included: Fundraising, Food, Communications, Hike Leaders, Activities, Entertainment, and others.

✔ Organize weekly meetings to plan Hike the Heights

− TIP: Use the meetings as an opportunity to engage the group and to bring in new ideas, people, and voices. (Co-chairs and committees can handle a lot of the basic logistics and tasks behind the scenes.)

− TIP: Some CLIMB Consensus Group members may not be able to attend the meetings, but will still be involved and contribute to Hike the Heights. These are our “call me if you need me” members. Engage them.

Hiking in Highbridge Park.

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✔ Start fundraising early!

− TIP for getting grants: Many grant applications are due in the previous year, so check deadlines and apply early. Hike the Heights has had a variety of supporters in the past. Key recent grants have come from the Citizen’s Committee for NYC, Partnerships for Parks, New York City Council, and Creating Healthy and Active Lifestyles for Kids (CHALK).

− TIP for getting donations from individuals: CLIMB and Hike the Heights have had a long-standing partnership with the nonprofit, ioby. Their online platform has allowed Hike the Heights to raise thousands of dollars from individuals. In addition, ioby has provided matching funds (free money!), provided technical support, acted as our fiscal sponsor, and has even participated in Hike the Heights several times as a seed group.

✔ Spread the word about Hike the Heights. Communicate through the CLIMB email list, the Hike the Heights website, the Hike the Heights Facebook page, as well as, through flyers and community meetings. And don’t forget the old reliable phone! Some of our senior hike leaders rely on their phones, not on email or social media.

✔ Get permits from the NYC parks department for all of the parks involved in Hike the Heights.

− CLIMB has partnered with Partnerships for Parks, which has helped the event in several ways, including helping with our permits, funding, trail cleanup, and technical assistance. For more information about our work with Partnerships for Parks, please see the contribution by Yekaterina Gluzberg in this section of The CLIMB Chronicles.

✔ Rent port-a-potties and locate them on the street level entrance to the Sunken Playground (The Pit).

✔ Arrange for delivery of the stage, pop up tents, tables, and chairs to the event site, and for pick up at the end of the event.

✔ Organize hike leaders to lead one group of hikers from the south (starting at Central Park and picking up hikers at each park along the way) and from the north (starting at RING Garden and picking up hikers at each park along the way) until the groups converge on the Sunken Play- ground (The Pit) of Highbridge Park for the annual community celebration.

− TIP: Schedule trainings for new hike leaders in advance of the event.

− TIP: Mark the trail with Hike the Heights signage and chalk before the event.

− TIP: In the past, CLIMB has organized trail cleanup days with Partnerships for Parks and Inwood Academy for Health in advance of Hike the Heights. Also, with advance notice, the NYC parks department can help to clear overgrowth, tree limbs, and poison ivy along the trail.

✔ Seed groups are key to the success of Hike the Heights! These are the groups of people who meet at each park along the CLIMB trail to hike on the day of Hike the Heights.

− TIP: it is important to sign up seed groups who have participated in the past, as well as to bring in new groups every year.

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− TIP: a great way to involve new organizations (schools, churches, community organizations) is by asking them to organize their members or constituents as a seed group departing from a park near the site of the organization.

− TIP: organizations can use Hike the Heights as a platform for their own activity. For example, in the past Asthma Basics for Children scheduled their annual asthma march on the day of Hike the Heights and joined as a seed group and at the celebration.

− Venture Prep Girls of Washington Heights and Troop 718 have been seed groups, along with many other roles, at Hike the Heights for several years. You can read about their experiences in this section of The CLIMB Chronicles.

✔ For wonderful information about planning for the FOOD and drinks at Hike the Heights, please see Maudene Nelson’s contribution “Loaves & Fishes & Chicken & Salad: Serving the Hikers” in this section of The CLIMB Chronicles.

✔ Organize activities for the Hike the Heights celebration. CLIMB has designed Hike the Heights as more of a movement fair than a health fair. In other words, all organizers are asked to incorporate movement into their tabling and to bring activities for participants of all ages. In addition, we have focused on activities that model what people can do in the parks on their own, from sports and games to art and yoga.

− TIP: The NYC Department of Parks and Recreation will provide a free mobile recreation van, but be sure to apply early through the NYC Parks website! In the past these vans have brought roller blading and other activities to Hike the Heights.

✔ One key activity that has happened both before and during the event is the ART, including giraffe making, which has been led by Creative Art Works (CAW) and also, in recent years, by the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling. Please see “Giraffe Path” by CAW, “Making Art with Children and Families and Building Community” by Tony González, and “Children’s Aid Society (CAS) In-Service Training” in this section of The CLIMB Chronicles for more information.

− TIP: Register Hike the Heights to be included as part of the Uptown Arts Stroll, which is held every June.

✔ Arrange entertainment, including music/DJ and performances (from local schools, groups, and individuals) to add to the festivities at the community celebration.

− Please see “The Soundtrack of Hike the Heights” by Teddy Swenson and “A Midwife,

Hula hooping at Hike the Heights 7.

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Community, and Belly Dancers” by Mari Pascoe in this section of The CLIMB Chronicles for more information about entertainment at Hike the Heights.

✔ In some years, we have had enough funding to purchase Hike the Heights t-shirts, backpacks, or other items and have given them out at no cost to participants. There has been a suggestion that we should sell some t-shirts in advance as a fundraiser to help subsidize free t-shirts for participants at the event.

✔ Remember to organize volunteers to help with setting up the party, as well as with clean up at the end! For the past several years, the scouts of Troop 718 have volunteered to help clean up.

✔ After Hike the Heights, it has been our tradition to send a Shout-Out email to thank that year’s organizers and also to hold a meeting to celebrate and to discuss how the event went as a way to build and plan for next year.

The Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling’s art-making activities at Hike the Heights 12.

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Hike the Heights Co-Chair Experiences

Reflection by Celeste Russell

I began volunteering with CLIMB as the Hike the Heights co-chair during my first semester of graduate school. I was initially interested in CLIMB as a true learning experience in how public health reaches beyond the standard physical and mental markers for quality of life I learned in under-graduate. I was intrigued that the literal make-up of the space around which we live, work, and play impacts our quality of life. Little did I know, over the next two years my commitment to Hike the Heights would completely change how I interacted with public health.

The first few Hike the Heights meetings, I tried to sit in the shadows. Volunteering with tasks I felt comfortable completing, and taking note of the dynamic and tone of the group. However, I quickly went from trying to be a fly on the wall to the person delegating tasks. I had been a leader in various student groups in school, but nothing that tasked me with planning a party for over 2,000 people for such an important initiative. I was scared to say the least.

This was one of those life instances where you’re afraid of being thrust into a position you don’t feel ready for, but looking back you wouldn’t have had it happen any other way. My time with Hike the Heights was a humongous learning experience. I learned that change was slow and exhausting, but the intend-ed end result is always worth the wait. I learned about various aspects of fundraising, delegating, community organizing, and event planning, to name a few, in a short period of time. I learned that if you want to have New York City Department of Parks and Recreation mobile recreation units you better apply first thing in February or those suckers are BOOKED. I learned that when I didn’t feel confident to complete a task or contact an individual my co-chair Ben would step in and save the day.

After a few months with CLIMB, I found out that being a leader meant some of the most mundane tasks were some of the most important. Take applying for a permit to hold an event in the park as an example. I also learned how to assess people’s skills and commitment levels. It felt like a puzzle, everyone had their own strengths, and I knew which volunteers were passion-ate about which aspects of the event and those were the tasks they were going to complete the best. And, THAT is what made Hike the Heights such a beauty. Passion. The closer we got to the event the more engaged people became in ensuring that their part was covered and perfected. Working with people can be la-

borious and frustrating, but working with passionate people makes the work enjoyable and exciting. No matter what went wrong, and things did go wrong, everyone’s passion for Hike the Heights made every mishap seem necessary for the experience.

Hike the Heights 10 co-chairs Celeste Russell and Ben Spoer.

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Community. The greatest experience I had with Hike the Heights was the community. Everyone I in-teracted with was heavily involved in Harlem, Washington Heights, and/or Inwood. I had only been in New York a few short months when I began volunteering with CLIMB. I was a student, I went to class, the library, and home. I didn’t have a sense of the borough of Manhattan, let alone the neighborhood of Washington Heights. CLIMB forced me to break the student bubble and become intimate with the Heights. I interacted with Council Members, residents, teachers, parents, and mentors that worked every day to make Upper Manhattan the best and brightest part of New York City. Each person took that job as seriously as the next to ensure that their hard work each and every day would continue to improve the present and future blocks of Upper Manhattan. To me this was the greatest reward of it all, family. And not just any family, family that cared and had a passion for something.

Everyone I interacted with proved to me that in order to be somewhat good at what you do, you need passion and a good shoulder to lean on for those times when exhaustion hits and passion isn’t cutting it. And for that I can’t thank the members of CLIMB enough.

Reflection by Angela Allard

I first learned about Hike the Heights through a fellow student at Columbia. The reclaiming and celebration of shared public spaces to catalyze community revitalization seemed like an organic pro-cess. The importance of the connection between place and community to the health and well being of neighborhoods is the reason I wanted to study public health. I knew that I had to be a part of this Hike the Heights celebration in some capacity.

Parks were an integral part of my childhood. They were where I met friends, learned how to ride a bike, and caught up on the latest gossip. During the summer months, they had a free lunch program for kids. You could go to any park in the city and grab a nutritious, full meal. Everyone was welcome to just show up and be fed. Some of my fondest memories include hanging out at the local YMCA and then walking over with a big group of kids to the park nearby and eating lunch together. For some, this would be the only healthy meal they would eat all day. We all came from different back-grounds. However, during this shared experience, there was no telling of difference. This was our park, our shared backyard. We exchanged stories, taught each other new games, and were all just as excited about sucking on the frozen solid juice cups they served for lunch—a welcome coolness to the hot, humid New England summer. Spending time at the park made me feel connected to some-thing larger than just my family or the neighbors on my block. It also instilled in me a sense of social responsibility and duty toward community.

This feeling of being connected to something came full circle at my first Hike the Heights (HTH 11) celebration in Highbridge Park. Providing a healthy and delicious meal for everyone that comes to the party is an important part of Hike the Heights. Seeing everyone line up to get their lunch and then sitting around and eating together reminded me of all those lunches I had in the park with my friends. It also reminded me of the significant role it played in establishing the connection I felt to the neighborhood and the people that lived there. The Sunken Playground, referred to as “The Pit” by the locals who use it year round, was full of people engaged in activities and with one another. Some people were family and friends, and others were meeting their neighbors for the first time. Either way, there was a friendly air of familiarity people had with each other as they were celebrat-ing the parks they shared and restoring a sense of pride in their neighborhood. My favorite part of

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the day was watching people decorate the giant giraffe sculpture. People were crowding around the giraffe to get a chance to adorn it with paper mâché. The end result was a vibrant display of colors.

Seeing everyone engaged in physical activity and witnessing the connections that are made on the day of the celebration, it became clear to me just how critical these public spaces are to the health of communities. That being said, the greatest education in community health that I received was being a part of the planning that went into making this day happen. After my first experience with Hike the Heights, I served as co-chair of the CLIMB Consensus Group for Hike the Heights 12. While it sounds like an important leadership role, I really just organized meetings and kept track of logistics. The beautiful thing about the Consensus Group is that everyone has equal say in shaping the party and so many of the people who come to the meetings have been contributing to the planning of this event for years. What struck me the most was the abundance of residents, community leaders, and organizations that are passionate and committed to improving the well being of their neighborhoods. The solutions to the health issues that burden a neighborhood often lie in the residents and insti-tutions that live there. The magic that is Hike the Heights is what happens when passionate people with a duty toward community to become connected and collaborate to create something meaningful.

During these planning meetings I met many inspiring people doing great work in the Washington Heights community. One of those people was Coach Dave Crenshaw, coach of a girl’s basketball team, Team Dreamers, at P.S. 128. Coach Dave is a community organizer, coach, and role model. He works constantly to empower girls through sports by giving them the tools to coach themselves and give back to their community. While Hike the Heights happens once a year, Coach Dave holds programming in the Pit year round. He often spoke about how important Hike the Heights and the CLIMB group had been to the girls he coaches and other kids in the neighborhood that use the Pit. So when he asked us if we, students at Mailman, might be able to help him organize some events for his team, we showed up. Students in the Urban Space and Health class organized a Girl’s Sports Night for the girls in the Team Dreamers program. After that, we held a fundraiser at a local restau-rant to support his Team Dreamers. This work with Coach Dave is the type of collaboration need-ed to advance collective goals of community health. And what I learned from my experience with CLIMB isn’t anything I would have been able to learn inside of a classroom. I am very grateful for having been a part of it.

Reflection by Lourdes Rodríguez

For the first seven years of Hike the Heights, I facilitated planning of the event in my role as Community Liaison for the Columbia Center for Youth Violence Prevention, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over 10 years. A few times my co-chairs were students doing their practica as part of their MPH training, among them Ken Nadolski, co-editor of The CLIMB Chronicles. Some of my fondest memories of Hike the Heights were the surprises of collaboration over the years. Because when you host a potluck, you never know what people are going to bring!

One year I was walking from my apartment on Nagle Avenue towards Manhattan Bible Church to meet Denise Hykes in her battered old red van to pick up our communal stage. As I walked in front of the elementary school (PS 152), I saw a group of giraffes lined up on the sidewalk (!!!). Children and their parents made these giraffes as part of the Children’s Aid Society early intervention program. The beautiful handmade art pieces were waiting for a cab to get to the park.

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Another year, as the day was wrapping up, the last group of hikers lined up their chairs close to our stage for our last act of the day. Laura (then 12 years old), daughter of JCL Team founders Juan Carlos and Lina Gonzalez, had put together a stand-up comedy show with two of her friends. After going to the library and checking out books about jokes, they selected their favorites and performed them for the Hike the Heights audience on our open stage.

In the spirit of the potluck, one way in which we sought to collaborate, was by inviting organizations to either start their events right after Hike the Heights (thus guaranteeing them an audience) or to end them right at our location (thus guaranteeing us participants!). An example was when, for our second Hike the Heights, the City Parks Foundation hosted one of their “Dancing in the Streets,” dance performances right at the end of our event. Although each event was “branded” differently, the transition was seamless: stages for performers and chairs for audience members were set in the morn-ing, prior to the hiking celebration. When we were done with lunch and playing, the performance began. Another example was during a year in which funding for youth afterschool programming was in jeopardy. Our colleagues from the Washington Heights Inwood Youth Service Provider Collective were ready to have a rally through the streets of the neighborhood to raise the issue and build sup-port. We invited them to finish their rally at our event. This gave them a stage for their speeches and rally, and it gave us an infusion of hundreds of hikers. Over the years the Asthma Basics for Children (ABC) Coalition and the WIN for Asthma and WIN for Diabetes projects of New York-Presbyterian Hospital also held walking events that ended in our main gathering place. Talk about a WIN:WIN!

Enjoying refreshments after hiking to the Sunken Playground at Hike the Heights 6.

Tamara Royal (center) and other participants from Children’s Aid Society show off their giraffes at Hike the Heights 7.

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The Scouts of Washington Heights

Venture Prep Girls of Washington Heights

By Lizzette Perez, Founder

Venture Prep Girls has participated in Hike the Heights since 2009. I remember being asked to participate and have an opportunity to promote our program to kids in the neighborhood. I was interested in the event because it was promoting a healthy activity that was happening in OUR neighborhood, not somewhere in downtown or Central Park. On that day, we brought five girls to Hike the Heights to promote the program but more importantly to do something in the neigh-borhood that had to do with the outdoors.

Hike the Heights gave us the opportunity to bring awareness to our girls of how you can do an out-doors activity in their neighborhood without having to spend money or time downtown. Every year, we would bring a couple of more girls to the event and in one year we had probably about 10-15 girls attend Hike the Heights. They enjoyed the activity, the scenery, and the fun festival at the end.

Personally, it’s really nice to see how much Hike the Heights has made an impact in our communi-ties, how it brought awareness to our city parks, and made the community come together for one day. Thank you for allowing me and Venture Prep Girls to be a part of Hike the Heights!

Troop 718

By Antonio A. Camacho, Co-Scoutmaster

Hike the Heights is the once a year opportunity to bring community and resources together. Troop 718 (formerly Troop 729) became in-volved as a seed group back in 2009 for Hike the Heights 5. Over the years Hike the Heights has become an integral part of the urban scout-ing experience. The event has promoted the use of our neighborhood hiking trails, physical fitness, and a sense of community. Over 100 members of our program have participated in the eight years since we have been attending. We have been seed groups, hike leaders, producers of the Hike the Heights 10 Documentary, and we have even set up and broken down for several years. We are proud to be a part of the phenomenon known as Hike the Heights.

Venture Prep Girls of Washington Heights.

Troop 718.

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Loaves & Fishes & Chicken & Salad: Serving the Hikers

By Maudene Nelson, RD

Philosophy

As everyone knows, CLIMB’s signature event is Hike the Heights. Bringing the event together has been a “potluck” of talent provided by volunteers from the medical center’s academic and health care provider programs, from community programs, from the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation, nonprofit organizations, local retailers, and many others. In keeping with the philosophy of Hike the Heights, this collective talent brainstormed on how to best organize, entertain, dress/accessorize, amuse, encourage, and, most importantly (to me anyway), feed the hikers and volunteers.

I started participating in the planning at the invitation of Mindy Fullilove. As a registered dietitian I was thrilled to learn the history and take a role. Also, I’m a sucker for a tee shirt.

Setting

The challenge has been to have tasty, culturally familiar (as much as possible), reasonably portioned, nutritious, and safely served lunch for a guestimate of 1,500 to 2,000 people attending the festival. There would never be a cost to anyone in the park. As everyone knows, the festival site is in a public park in Washington Heights in early June. This will be a breeze, said no one ever.

Funding & Donations

Serving a lunch, beverage, and snack at Hike the Heights has always been a commitment of CLIMB. As the budget took shape, paying for the lunch and snacks has always been a high priority. As needed, we requested and were grateful for the generosity of pans of cooked chicken from local restaurants, pallets of fruit and/or snacks from City Harvest (often we did not know what if anything would be available until days before), and bottled water (we had a fun craft project using “O” rings to encourage reuse of the bottles) from Coogan’s Restaurant.

Menu

Beverages: It has always been very hot on the day of the Hike. In accordance with a change in guide-lines set by the Parks Department, we discontinued giving out individual water bottles and tried to rely on the existing water fountain. Hike leaders and hike groups were encouraged to bring their own water bottles. One year we had to dispatch someone to buy gallons of water and cups in order to pre-vent a dehydration disaster. In the future the decision to request or accept bottled or boxed beverages

Maudene Nelson serving the hikers.

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should be made by the planning committee.

Snacks: At each festival we paid a local couple to serve free icees. As available, granola bars and other packaged nutrition bars have been donated and distributed at the park.

Lunch: The first Hike the Heights lunches that were served were catered by Bama’s Fish N Chips, a local restaurant and caterer. The menu was “cook-out” style: burgers, franks, chicken, baked beans, and a pastry. The food was well received.

By about the third year of Hike the Heights the collective planning committee opened the discussion on how to have the menu better reflect to essence of CLIMB, i.e., demonstrate healthy behaviors that participants can adopt for themselves. In other words, we wanted to raise the bar on healthy in-gredients and stay within the same cost. The planning committee invited Vanny Lantigua, owner of Antojitos Y Monadas to attend planning meetings. She was an established and respected caterer from the community. Her repertoire for lunch refreshments included innovative wraps, salads, pastries, and she prepared the standards, such as rice and beans and chicken. She and I became the “Food Committee.”

Vanny’s first menu included large pans of rice and vegetable blends, seasoned chicken, salad, a vege-tarian option, and zucchini cookies. The preparation involved Vanny and three staff members who worked literally all night chopping, mixing, blending, and packaging.

After three or four years of setting up several sterno and chaffing pans, a team of gloved and aproned servers, and disposal of over two thou-sand disposable plates, forks, and knives, and numerous aluminum pans, we thought there had to be a simpler way to serve the lunch.

In subsequent years the menu reflected a goal to reduce the labor intensity of serving, to be able to serve food faster, and to reduce the amount of food and materials waste. We simplified lunch to a brown paper bag containing wraps (chicken and vegetarian) in zip-lock bags, salad in a spill-proof cup, and a handmade empanada. Although Vanny and her team still worked all night, the amount of set up and breakdown on the day of the festival was so much easier and lighter.

Feedback Over the Years

I think the Food Committee has done a fantastic job, but some could say I’m biased. Among the critiques that have been offered:

1) Preparation of too much food and the need to distribute the surplus to local institutions (men’s shelter, rehab home)

Vanny Lantigua and Maria Lizardo, Executive Director of NMIC, getting the food ready.

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a. It’s hard to anticipate with precise accuracy how many to prepare for; a ballpark number has had to work.

b. In order to accommodate any of the hikers who have to leave the festival early, it is optimal to serve food no later than noon.

2) If this is the only meal some of the people at the festival will receive, it should be more familiar foods and there should be no limits on how much one can be served.

a. The collective opinion was that the festival offers refreshments, not a conventional hot meal as served in a licensed meal site.

b. Any person requesting additional food will be provided extra food.

Maudene Nelson and Vanny Lantigua with the wonderful lunch they had organized at Hike the Heights 6.

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Giraffe Path

By Creative Art Works

Imagine you are walking along the winding paths of a New York City park on a warm summer day, when you stumble upon a col-lection of joyful sculptures in a sun-dappled grove. You see a family of giraffes, some as tall as seven feet high, painted in raucous colors and decorated with an uninhibited collection of beads, feathers, tissue paper, and found objects. You keep walking, passing more delightful giraffes, until you reach a sunken playground, which has been transformed into a festival of creativity and a celebration of community health. This is the magic of Giraffe Path, the annual art-making event that pro-

motes public health, engages young people through creativity, and builds bridges within and between communities of Upper Manhattan.

Community art programs are special in that they allow youth to cultivate internal creativity and re-siliency while at the same transforming the external community. Since its inception in 2007, Giraffe Path has been a critical component of Hike the Heights. While Hike the Heights promotes physi-cal fitness by encouraging residents of Upper Manhattan to hike the string of emerald spaces from Central Park North to The Cloisters, Giraffe Path promotes emotional and mental health and builds connections between kids and their community through the creation of art.

“The Giraffe Path” took its name from the shape of the CLIMB trail through upper Manhattan, which looks like a giraffe, and because a giraffe has a unique perspec-tive because its head is up high. Originally, young artists made giraffe sculptures and placed them along the Giraffe Path itself for hikers to see. Creative Art Works Executive Director Brian Ricklin remembers the excitement of driving a pickup truck filled with sculptures as staff and youth employees rushed to place between 75 and 100 giraffes along the trails before the official start of the Hike. One CAW Youth Apprentice compared the exhila-rating feeling to preparing an Easter egg hunt. The young artists would then hike the heights themselves, picking up their giraffe sculptures along the way, and bringing them to the Sunken Playground off Edgcombe Avenue in Highbridge Park.

Giraffe making for first round of giraffes.

Elisa Rodríguez painting a giraffe at Hike the Heights 7.

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In recent years, the focus of Giraffe Path has shifted to the art making in the Sunken Playground. During this celebration of art making, we provide a variety of group and individual giraffe projects, including age-appropriate projects for younger kids. We encourage everybody in the family to partic-ipate, but we sometimes have to gently remind the grownups not to hog the art supplies. Communi-ty performances, face-painting, and healthy food options add to the festive atmosphere.

The method of giraffe construction continues to evolve to address a variety of design challenges. The instructions must be scalable and flexible, so different community groups can adapt the design to suit their needs, the age and experience of their participants, and the amount of time they choose to commit to the project. In order to be ecologically sound and cost conscious, we search for inventive uses of recycled materials or inexpensive household objects. One year, we used plastic milk cartons for bodies. Another year we tried cardboard filing boxes. In recent years, we’ve used newspaper wad-ded into balls for the body and rolled into tubes for the neck and legs. Giraffes have been decorated with paint, decoupage and collage, mosaic tiles, feathers, sequins, googely eyes, beads, plastic trin-kets, pipe cleaners, and found objects.

In addition to direct programming, CAW ex-pands the reach of Giraffe Path through “Teach the Teacher” sessions with dozens of community partners, who put their own unique stamp on their giraffes. Some giraffes go home with their young artists, while others stay in the school or commu-nity center where they were created. Several of the wire and bead giraffes from the very first Giraffe Path can still be seen to this day. In our first ten years, we have offered the opportunity to make gi-raffe-themed art to thousands of children and their family members through in-school, after-school, and Saturday programs, in addition to the drop-in participation on the day of Giraffe Path. Participa-tion continues to grow each year.

In 2015, a group of CAW Youth Apprentices from A. Philip Randolph High School created a back-drop for the Giraffe Path community stage that celebrates the idea that public art improves public health. The large-scale painting includes a map of Upper Manhattan, silhouettes of young people participating in physical activity and images of St. Nicholas Park, which is both on the Giraffe Path and adjacent to the high school.

Thanks to Giraffe Path, the Giraffe has become not only the mascot of Hike the Heights, but also a recognized symbol of Upper Manhattan. Moreover, Giraffe Path has become an emblem of the heal-ing power of community art and a testament to what young people can accomplish when provided with the opportunity.

Flyer for Hike the Heights 3: Giraffe Path.

caminando los altos 3:la ruta de las jirafas

hike the heights 3:giraffe path

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Making Art with Children and Families and Building Community

By Tony González

Who doesn’t love a giraffe?

Nobody.

What constitutes “Giraffiness”? The question posed to a classroom of 1st graders about to make giraffe-in-spired art starts the journey. We free associate about giraffes in the broadest sense, deconstructing “Giraffi-ness” as we would any complex text. A giraffe is a very relatable creature to young children—immediately recognizable, all neck and legs and pattern, with big bovine eyes, and a very sweet (if slightly goofy) face. It lends itself to description, interpretation, and imita-tion. We stand up and imagine how we would walk if we were tall, long-legged creatures. We forage for our supper, stretching our long necks to reach the tastiest leaves in the highest branches of the acacia trees. We practically defy gravity walking tall and elegant, doing all the things that giraffes do. The group may take a creative digression and inhabit “pigness” for the sake of juxtaposing contrasting qualities (we truly know something only in relation to other different things). A pig is all roundness, with a flat snout and tiny little eyes. It lives near the ground and wallows in mud. We alternate inhabiting pigness and giraffiness, physically moving around the room exploring habitats. Down the line we experiment with a variety of engaging art materials to help stimulate our imaginations and take us deeper into the experience. Our explorations activate all of our senses, and the art that results becomes a documentation of the journey—the journey being the point.

I came to be involved in Hike the Heights/Giraffe Path as Program Director at Creative Art Works (CAW), a New York non-profit that for decades “has been at the forefront of change in our urban communities, empowering young people through arts programming that incorporates academic enrichment, creative expression, workforce development, and community engagement.” Each year, as June approached, we would introduce giraffe-themed art making in our public school work-shops. The students were encouraged to bring their completed giraffe projects to the celebration. In partnership with New York Cares we provided busses to transport children and families to Sunken Playground for the community festival.

Each year, on the day of the festival, CAW rallied an army of volunteers to support family-friendly art making in the park. We have facilitated building eco-friendly giraffe sculptures made from rolled

A child creating a giraffe for Hike the Heights.

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and crumpled newspapers, decoupaged with brightly colored tissue paper. When designing a project for an outdoor community event like Giraffe Path (as opposed to a traditional classroom full of kids) the activity must be flexible enough to appeal to a wide range of ages and skills. It should be some-thing a child can easily grasp and dive right into, with a minimum of instruction—with room for deep diving if they are so inclined. The level of complexity should be dictated by the artists’ inclina-tions. Since most children who attend the event are accompanied by adults, the ideal project in this context should also mediate that adult/child connection similar to the way reading aloud to a child mediates a loving relationship. Two people share a creative experience, as they bring to life a colorful, lyrical thing of beauty, which will later remind them of the very pleasant time they had one happy day in June.

In the Spring of 2015, during the five weeks that led up to the first weekend in June, three giant paper maché giraffe heads were created by a CAW creative youth development teen program at the Highbridge Recreation Center in northern Manhattan. Creative youth development programs such as this one challenge local teen “apprentices” to move beyond their comfort zones in a safe environment where they cultivate life skills and gain an introduction to the workplace dynamic—while having a lot of fun as members of a creative team that produces very ambitious public art. The giraffe heads were then decorated by children and families at the festival and subsequently used to lead a celebratory procession during the re-opening of the High Bridge, connecting Washington Heights to the Bronx across the East River.

Over the years I’ve facilitated Teach the Teacher Workshops for grad students from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, and other members of the uptown community. They learned how to build giraffes, so they could spread the giraffe love around by going out into the world to lead their own one-off giraffe-making sessions at local schools and community centers.

Teems from the CAW creative youth development program at Highbridge Recreation Center create a paper maché giraffe head.

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In the fall of 2016, I joined the program staff of the Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Sto-rytelling. Its early childhood art education focus and social justice mission aligns perfectly with the public health principles embraced by City Life Is Moving Bodies (CLIMB). The museum is located at the intersection of the traditionally African-American community of Harlem and the predomi-nantly Latino community of Washington Heights, adjacent to the South Bronx. The neighborhoods contained therein have rich and vibrant cultural histories which the museum’s exhibitions and educa-tional programs aim to honor and illuminate. We are in the literal and metaphorical heart of Giraffe Path territory. For the past two years the museum has hosted a hike for very young children (some in strollers) and their families who “hike” from the museum’s “stoop” to the party at Sunken Play-ground, where museum staff and volunteers have increased the family-friendly art making options. Between the contributions of Creative Art Works and Sugar Hill Children’s Museum, the art making has continued to be a significant part of the Hike the Heights/Giraffe Path experience for the thou-sands of people who have participated over the years.

It is sometimes difficult for the uninitiated to understand the ethos of pure selflessness and generos-ity at the heart of our “community potluck.” It is not your typical outdoor festival. In my work as an administrator of nonprofit art education programs, I’ve spent countless hours at public festivals. Few approach the level of sheer unadulterated giving and joy of Hike the Heights/Giraffe Path. It has been a privilege to be part of the CLIMB Consensus Group that greases the wheels of this very special annual community endeavor.

The Youth Orchestra performing at Height the Heights 12, in front of the Giraffe Mural, painted by youth in the CAW program.

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Children’s Aid Society (CAS) In-Service Training April 21, 2011 at PS 5

Field notes by Lourdes Rodríguez

I arrived a bit late to the training. Fifteen minutes late, to be exact. When I walked into the room, a group of about 40 women was sitting in preschooler-sized chairs listening intently to Tamara Royal, Education Coordinator for PS 5 and our host. Tamara was describing the purpose of the day to:

• learn about Hike the Heights,

• have a giraffe making demonstration, and

• discuss ways to infuse elements of these activities into HeadStart curricula.

Tamara encouraged everyone to make sure they didn’t leave without picking up their copy of Why Giraffes Can’t Dance, a book that had been purchased for all HeadStart classes by CAS.

Tamara prepared a very thick handout for the in-service training. The packet included instructions on how to make giraffes prepared by Creative Art Works, printed versions of the Hike the Heights website and useful tips to get ready for Hike the Heights 7. It also went into detail about the ways that folks could sign up for Hike the Heights as families or individuals and gave a lot of tips on how to prepare for the day. Tamara even went into a demonstration of how to pack for the day by pulling items out of a bag that would be useful for the day: glasses, hats, bandaids, water, shakers, and musi-cal instruments.

Next, Tamara asked that everyone introduce themselves. There were teachers, assistant teachers, par-ent coordinators, and educational directors from all of the Children’s Aid Society’s HeadStart sites. After the round of presentations she asked folks who had participated in Hike the Heights in the past to stand up. “Do we have any hikers here?” she said as she looked around the room. We stood up (I have been a hiker, after all) and she asked that we remain standing and share the experience with oth-ers. Prompted by Tamara, Diego spoke and said he had gone hiking with his father and that he had learned that giraffes lived in savannahs. Beaming with pride at my son, I added that this was the 7th year we were doing Hike the Heights and that it had started as a way to introduce neighborhood residents to areas of the parks that they may not be familiar with or that they didn’t visit because they found them to be unsafe. The next person to speak said that she had lived in this neighborhood for 35 years and she had never visited the trails of Highbridge Park because it was a dangerous place. She said she was pleasantly surprised that the park was in such good conditions and that she enjoyed doing the hike with her family. Yet another person said that at first, being completely honest, she had thought that the idea of walking all the way to 173rd street was mad.

A giraffe made by a local child along the Giraffe Path.

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She was surprised at how the children were so enthusiastic during the hike, how they were taking pictures with the giraffes they had made as if they were celebrities and how the journey seemed short-er because it was so enjoyable. She described how the hikers were received at the celebration site with music, cheers, and lots of enthusiasm. I was touched by their words.

Abigail, from Creative Art Works, would give a demo on how to make giraffes, but before she did Tamara asked that anyone who had brought their giraffes to share them with others. Up went hands with giraffes. The first woman pulled a giraffe plush toy that she said “watches over me at night.” The woman who made the comment about the long walk that was unexpectedly enjoyed shared three samples she made with her students: a giraffe collage made of colored paper—the face of the giraffe was the shape of the student’s shoe—another giraffe (just the neck and head) made out of a paper towel tube that could be used as a flag to lead hikers, and yet another giraffe made of clothes-pins. Three moms shared their felt giraffes—petite and flat—small enough that people suggested they could be sewn to t-shirts as decorations. Another one showed a paper maché miniature giraffe that had survived from last year and that she was clearly attached to.

After a round of applause, Abigail gave her demo on how to build a large-scale giraffe. We didn’t get to see the full giraffe paper machéed but got the sense of it from her instructions.

A participant from the Children’s Aid Society with her giraffe hat at Hike the Heights 7.

Paper mache has been a favorite method of making giraffes for Hike the Heights.

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The Soundtrack of Hike the Heights

By Teddy Swenson

On the morning of Hike the Heights 12, in 2016, long before the hikers convened at their starting points throughout northern Manhattan, we arrived at Highbridge Park to find a quiet, sleeping, park—a blank slate waiting to be filled with music and laughter. It was hard to believe that in just a few hours the stage would be set up, the generator running and Michael Jackson playing over the loud speakers.

As the Stage Manager of the event, I had a lot to get done to make sure that our eclectic group of en-tertainers had everything they needed to perform their array of talents. First we assembled the stage that was shared with a neighborhood church. It was rickety after many years of holding up dancing feet but it was just right for our needs. Immediately the stage was swarmed by the children of vol-

unteers who began singing songs from Frozen and creating choreographed dances. It didn’t matter to them that no one was in the audience yet, they savored their moment in the spotlight. From that moment on, the stage was never empty.

The entertainment for Hike the Heights fully represent-ed the “pot luck” metaphor that persisted throughout the event. Anyone was welcome to sign up to share their talents, amateurs and professionals alike. Most performers came from the Washington Heights community or were friends of residents. Some groups repre-sented neighborhood schools or churches and some were in-dividuals brave enough to face hundreds of people alone.

Soon the hikers arrived and were eager to see what was in store for them on the stage. With the clacking of sticks and loud woops, the ABADA Capoeira martial arts team grabbed the attention of the Angela Allard and Teddy Swenson at Hike the Heights 12.

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groups of hikers and families standing nearby. The Capoeira group formed a semi-circle in front of the stage and demonstrated their strength and agility through jumps, kicks, and spins. The audience was captivated and enthusiastically clapped along to their drumbeats.

After watching the inspiring Capoeira demonstration the audience was ready to get up and start moving. The Zumba instructor pulled up on his bicycle and energetically got the crowed going. Young kids rushed to the front to follow along by kicking their feet up high and jumping one leg in front of the other. The older ladies were skeptical at first. They stood on the perimeter of the group and swayed a little, unsure of how to get involved. But before long they were pumping their arms and dancing to the beat!

Exhausted and sweaty, the Zumba dancers left the stage area in search of shade and water. Then it dawned on me—where was the Sonnet Man? The Sonnet Man had become a Hike the Heights favorite. He took Shakespeare sonnets and rapped them in a way that made them fun to listen to and easier to understand. He was great with kids and always a huge hit! But he wasn’t there yet…

Fortunately, just in time, members of the children’s orchestra began arriving! They trickled in, toting their oversized instruments and descending into The Pit with nervous energy. For many of them this was their first public performance! They anxiously tuned their screechy violins as I set up the stage to seat 15 kids and their music stands. As they took the stage to play “Jumping Bean” the crowd fin-ished their lunches and took seats in the shade to watch and show their support. The five short songs that the children’s orchestra played were definitely a highlight of the day. They were both adorable

and impressive!

Towards the end of the orchestra set the Sonnet Man sauntered in and to everyone’s great enjoyment closed out the day’s entertainment with a few awesome raps. Kids were chanting along with the verses and repeating Shakespeare lyrics. It was incredible to see how he could take such complex literature and make it accessible to people of all ages and backgrounds.

As the Stage Manager, I not only got to watch all of these amazing diverse performances, I got to meet and learn about the people behind the performances: the sweet young man that gives up his weekends to teach the children’s orchestra, the energetic Zumba instructor, the passionate Sonnet Man who just wants to bring Shakespeare to the people… They and many more made up the sound track of Hike the Heights that tied the whole event together.

The Sonnet Man performing at Hike the Heights 12 in 2016.

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A Midwife, Community, and Belly Dancers

By Mari Pascoe

I am a midwife and was working at the Rangel Clinic on 135th Street for many years. I got involved with Hike the Heights because I’m very interested in having more options for exercise for pregnant patients. For several years, Andrea Matos and I were Hike Leaders from Jackie Robinson Park, and lead exercises for pregnant women (as well as for Girl Scouts and whoever else wanted to exercise) before we joined the larger march.

One year, one of my patients came in early labor, and was happy to have something to take her mind off her mild contractions. Our group walked to Highbridge Park and every once in a while I checked in on her, to be sure she was eating and drinking fluids. I suggested she head home several times, but she wanted to wait for the entertainment that was coming later: the Prenatal Belly Dance Class! A couple of hours later, the Belly Dancers came on stage with flowing scarves and colorful skirts and the crowd roared! Soon after, my patient went home, took a shower, and then went to the hospital and delivered her baby.

The sense of community was palpable.

The Prenatal Belly Dance class performs on the stage at Hike the Heights.

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Partnerships for Parks and Hike the Heights

By Yekaterina Gluzberg

I first found out about Hike the Heights when I went to my first Community Board 12 Parks Committee meeting in Manhattan in 2008. As an outreach coordinator for Partnerships for Parks, I supported community park groups in community boards 11 and 12. It was part of my job respon-sibility to attend the Parks Committee meetings in those community boards, in order to learn more about the needs and desires of various community members. I met Laura Gabby at that first meeting, and after we chatted about our reasons for coming to the meeting, she shared with me the multiple page report outlining the CLIMB and Hike the Heights project. I was instantly intrigued. The project appealed to many of my personal interests and aspirations: enjoying nature outdoors, hiking with fellow New Yorkers, healthy living, and celebrating the diversity of cultures and opinions of the people of New York City.

As an outreach coordinator, it was also part of my duties to help community park groups navigate through the NYC Parks system in order to organize volunteer projects and public events. In my 5.5 years as an outreach coordinator, supporting Hike the Heights throughout those years was one of my most memorable and rewarding experiences.

Working with CLIMB and Hike the Heights gave me the opportunity to view the parks in north-ern Manhattan through a unique lens. When I was an Urban Park Ranger in northern Manhattan, I strove to understand the ecology of the parks, focusing on the interrelationships of the flora and fauna—the diversity of trees and herbaceous plants and the birds, snakes and even salamanders that evolved to depend on the plants. I also enjoyed learning and teaching others about the natural history of the parks—how the striations in the bedrock were formed by glaciers that moved through the area long ago, and other incredible large-scale events.

As I participated in Hike the Heights throughout the years, I also weaved in the human elements into the ecological makeup of the parks. When I went on walking meetings throughout the Giraffe Path, I began to better understand why “abandoned” park spaces, those that the majority of the com-munity avoid, arise and how they persist in a community. I was also taught by co-leaders Lourdes Rodríguez and Mindy Fullilove how to take back these spaces.

In the 1970s and 1980s NYC Parks faced severe budget cuts. This led to an inability by the city to properly maintain some parks. Overgrown weeds enclosed some walkways, other walkways and infra-structure cracked, fell apart and was left in a disastrous state. Some people began to avoid those areas, but others found new places to escape. People not part of the common fabric of society, who need extra help but are not able to obtain it—people who were homeless, cruising for sex or using drugs, and others—now found those could be places for them.

The first time Lourdes, Mindy, Danny Mercado (the Park Manager) and I walked the trail to prepare for a group clean-up project a couple of weeks before Hike the Heights, I was scared. As we walked by some unsightly individuals in the hidden trails, Lourdes went up to them to let them know we were preparing for an event, and that we would like to clean the area. They said they would stay out of our way and let us use the space. Lourdes did not have fear in her voice. She treated them with

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the respect and empathy with which she treats everyone. That short interaction has stuck with me all these years, and is a perfect example of how to bring back the element of safety into a public park: engage and inform everyone about the intentions and the activities in the park and allow everyone to have a voice. Let the majority opinion be the final say.

In this way, Hike the Heights shifted and changed annually, depending on who took part in the planning meetings. One year, a member of the planning com-mittee knew a Spanish music DJ, so we had salsa music blasting on the Tower Plaza, performances, and people showing off their skills. Other years, we had Capoe-ira performances. Then someone met a sports coach who brought in coordinated sports games. One year, I suggested a guided nature walk and with my Parks connec-tion, I brought in an Urban Park Ranger to lead the tour. Anoth-er year, an international artist somehow came into the picture and that year participants created a large-scale temporary collage. Even the food choices shifted throughout the years. We had a nutritionist on our committee who wanted the event to encourage people to eat healthy. We hired a local caterer and she prepared delicious dishes, but some of these were exotic to the community, like salad with kale and mini quiches. We noticed that these healthier choices were left on people’s plates. The following year, one of the members of the planning com-mittee suggested that we should encourage people to eat healthier by serving healthier versions of the foods that people were used to. We followed her advice and served a smaller portion of salad, put vegetables in baked empanadas, and had baked chicken. These dishes were a hit!

One thing did not change throughout the years: the event served as a connector and equalizer of all the people who participated. This was my favorite aspect of Hike the Heights. The event engaged individuals of all ages and backgrounds in walks that meandered for 10, 20, 50 city blocks, bringing people together in wonder about the diversity of landscapes in our city. I remember the young kids from Harlem Children’s Zone that I led from Jackie Robinson Park. These kids had never been to an intact forest and they were fascinated by the forested areas of Highbridge Park, surrounded by trees and singing birds, cars and trucks lulled by the thick foliage. They were excited and interested!

When people finished their respective hikes and made it to the central meeting location, volunteers cheered and welcomed them to a community party. They were given a t-shirt, invited to participate in art activities, watch local entertainment, and enjoy a plate of freshly prepared food. Regardless of whether they came from East or West of Broadway, from Harlem, Inwood, Washington Heights or

Kate Gluzberg and Mindy Fullilove presenting Manhattan Parks Commissioner William Castro being with a “thank you” card signed by Hike the Heights attendees thrilled to see the Tower stairs rebuilt.

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a neighborhood outside of northern Manhattan, whether they spoke English, Spanish, or another language, everyone was made to feel welcome.

I’ve since moved on from my position as an outreach coordinator and no longer work as closely as I once did with the communities in northern Manhattan. I have not helped plan Hike the Heights since 2013, but many of the elements of the event have stayed with me and have shaped the way I see the world, work with and treat people. Hike the Heights encouraged me to be empathetic to people from all walks of life, to be open to opposing viewpoints and ideas, to work together with others in creating positive experiences, and to take at least a little bit of time to revel in these shared experiences. Thank you to all of the people of CLIMB and Hike the Heights for enhancing my life through this event. I am forever grateful.

Public psychiatry fellows joined the effort to clean up the park before Hike the Heights.

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seCTIon 5: refleCTIng on ConneCTIons and CommunITy

“This relationship has been transformational and it all started with working on that park together. Now, we are building a community together.”

– Coach Dave Crenshaw

As is evident from the stories in the previous section, a tremendous amount of planning, organizing, and work go into making Hike the Heights a wonderful day in northern Manhattan parks. However, in many ways, Hike the Heights is more than just a one-day event.

In this section of The CLIMB Chronicles, we focus on how CLIMB has used Hike the Heights to make connections, build partnerships, and strengthen community, as CLIMB Consensus Group members reflect on Hike the Heights through the years.

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Showing Up for The Pit: Coming Across Broadway

By Coach Dave Crenshaw

Highbridge Park on 165th Street, or “The Pit,” as the people from the neighborhood call it, is the park I grew up in—that’s my park. As Coach for Team Dreamers, a Title IX program that uses sports to encourage girls to coach themselves and take that lesson into the community, we use the Pit for practices, holding tournaments, and hosting community events. The Pit is our park and home base, but I had never even heard of Hike the Heights until I was invited to a big meeting at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. Now, I don’t usually go to these meetings at Columbia because there are a lot of fake and phony people in them. This meeting, however, was about bringing to-gether the youth groups of the neighborhood in the same room to organize, and as Coach of Team Dreamers, it was important I showed up.

As soon as I walked into the meeting, Dr. Lourdes, the facilitator, already knew who I was and had greeted me saying, “Ahh, the in-famous Coach Dave who I’ve been wanting to meet.” Right off the bat I felt better about coming because she had said it with love in her voice as opposed to disdain, and wasn’t wondering what I was doing there. Soon after that, they spoke about this wonderful event they have once a year where people hike from all the parks in northern Manhat-tan to come together at the Sunken Play-ground in Washington Heights. I had never heard of that park before, but it sounded like a good idea. When they mentioned that the

Sunken Playground was located on 165th Street and Edgecombe Ave., I realized they were talking about The Pit, and immediately said to them, “That’s not the Sunken Playground, that’s The Pit! That’s the park I grew up in.”

Apparently, this event had been going on for a few years already with around 2,000 people in atten-dance. I couldn’t believe I didn’t know about it, but then I was also so amazed that people who aren’t even from the block could care about my park. To understand this: the southern part of Highbridge Park around Edgecombe and 165th, where the Pit is located, is a park that services so many people. It has eight schools within walking distance and serves residents from both the Washington Heights and Harlem neighborhoods. Yet, this park was always left out and abandoned—although, never in terms of how many people used it—when it came to renovations, rehabilitation, and investment. The fact that CLIMB was getting the rest of the community to come in and adopt the park for one day a year was so amazing to me that I jumped in with both feet.

That first year that I was involved they didn’t have money for Hike the Heights T-shirts and so that was my contribution. Team Dreamers printed shirts in the lunchroom at P.S 128. We made about 800 of them that we passed out to people at the party. People from community organizations

Coach Dave with participants at “Girl’s Sports Night”.

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brought things and activities that our children don’t get, like making the giraffes and chalk painting on the sidewalks. They brought a lot of the old school fun back. I just felt so glad to be with these wonderful people in my home park, the place where I grew up and where my program grew up.

The style of the party is a community potluck so everyone involved brings what they can and does their best. Each person’s contribution to the event is important and appreciated. Every year, I bring sports and activities to the party and recruit youth to volunteer. One year I developed the open-mic for when groups aren’t performing on the stage. Any child who wants to perform a song or do a dance is welcome to come up on the stage. The stage is never dead because so many of the kids want to perform and show off their talents to the community. The whole purpose of that day is to celebrate our parks, being part of a community, and learning how to work together. That is what a community potluck is about, that is what community building is about.

Working with CLIMB was great because people were excited to come down to the park to clean, paint, and fix it up for the party. However, my relationship with CLIMB became even more im-portant to me after the High Bridge was reopened in 2015. One of CLIMB’s main goals was the reopening of this walking bridge, which would connect Highbridge Park in Washington Heights to the Bronx. Getting the bridge opened is a wonderful thing but it wasn’t a concern of mine. My main concern was my park—the Pit and the playground upstairs. I remember being at a meeting and they were discussing what to do next since Hike the Heights accomplished one of their main goals and I said to everybody, “Wait a minute, how are we finished?”

The bridge was a $62 million dollar project and serves as a gateway from the Bronx to Manhattan, and you cross this wonderful bridge, get to the park, and it’s a wreck. That’s not the first thing you want people coming from the Bronx to see. There are no benches, there are cracks all over the place, and there’s no bathroom. The bridge is supposed to be handicap accessible and then when you get to the park there’s no place to relieve yourself. That is wrong, but it’s even more wrong for a park that services so many people. There are eight schools within walking distance and teachers can’t even bring their students there because there’s no bathroom. I had received a grant from Citizen’s Com-mittee to hold a ladies’ tournament and I couldn’t do it in our park because you can’t hold a female tournament in a park without a bathroom. CLIMB listened to these concerns of mine and decided to keep Hike the Heights going and place an emphasis on getting the park renovated. Thanks to them, this park is not getting left out anymore. Hike the Heights brings 2,000 people to the park once a year, and I wanted to see how we could take advantage of that to make this a better place for the neighborhood the other 364 days of the year.

We found out that same year about this project coming out of the Mayor’s Office to reinvigorate NYC parks. One park in every borough is going to become an “Anchor Park” and get $30 million toward its renovation where residents in the neighborhoods of these parks can come to the commu-nity board meetings and voice the changes that they would like to see. Highbridge Park became one of these anchor parks. This was great news but that’s only half of the battle. Highbridge Park is huge. It goes all the way from 155th street to 200th street. Most of the time the money goes from where the bridge is toward the north. We couldn’t let that happen this time.

What the CLIMB crew did next was train me on how to present myself in meetings at communi-ty boards and tell my story. They helped me get my argument together and to bring my teenagers with me to these meetings, since having them with me is having the best representation. I explained at community board meetings that these teenagers’ parents used to play in the park and now their

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children are using the same exact equipment they used, and that’s not right. The most important thing I learned from working with them is that you have to keep showing up, know how to present your case, and keep advocating for your community over and over again. The same way I showed up to their meetings and told them that they have to keep Hike the Heights going, is the same way I’m showing up to these community board meetings.

Most importantly, through CLIMB I’m starting to see this shift in the relationship between the longtime residents of the community and the students from Columbia. There’s this idea that Co-lumbia stays on their side of Broadway, and we stay on ours. When you’re from the ’hood you don’t trust many people. We’ve been abandoned and betrayed by too many folks that come and go. And so I’ll never forget when I was walking with Professor Mindy and we passed by a sign that was adver-tising new condos on Edgecombe Ave. She looked at me and said, “I didn’t do all of this for them, you understand?” At the time I had known her and loved what she was doing and thought her to be a wonderful lady. However, when I saw the disdain and disgust in her face as she looked at that sign I said to myself, “This is someone I can follow, this is someone I can trust.” I started coming to her classroom and mobilizing students to help us get our park renovated. Their commitment really empowered me. When I saw they cared about my part of the community, it made me want to get to know them and where they come from. Now we have students from Mailman coming across Broad-way to volunteer at our school, P. S. 128. We’re not introducing these students as Bob, Henry, and Joanne. We are introducing them as Chicago, L.A, and we even have one young lady from Nigeria. Each of them has a gift to share and just having them come across Broadway to help out is making the students feel better.

Working with CLIMB has become a convenient way to bring people together and show them how their commitment to something as simple as a park will ultimately help the neighborhood. The guid-ance I received from them pointed me toward opportunities to maintain some connection between the longtime residents of the community and the things that are happening in their neighborhoods that they don’t necessarily feel a part of—and that is really important. What gets the neighborhood

A group picture from the Mailman students' great "Girls Sports Night" event, organized with Coach Dave.

Girls’ Sports Night

By Michelle, Adena, Lucy, Teddy, Audrey, Sengyeon, & Haein

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so upset is that we have been through the struggle, but we stayed here and fought. And now that the sun is getting ready to shine, we shouldn’t have to leave for someone else to have it. We need to figure out how to be better neighbors and work together, and I think the only way that is going to happen is through the students (at Columbia). If they are going to live here, they have to be a part of it. If they are going to practice public health, they need to be a part of the community, and not just the one they are comfortable with. This relationship has been transformational and it all started with working on that park together. Now, we are building a community together.

CLIMB has been one of the most effective and supportive organizing groups I’ve been a part of in my life, and also the easiest to work with. I enjoy watching the students smile through finding a way to make Hike the Heights happen, no matter what goes wrong. Even if we get a late start to plan-ning, we’re still going to make it happen because the community will show up. CLIMB (the Con-sensus Group) is designed in a way that doesn’t have a structure that can make people feel uncom-fortable. No one is going to get upset with you if you can’t make the meetings or if you’re not able to contribute that year. When you show up they’ll say, “I’m so glad to see you, how long are you able to stay?” If you only have a few minutes, they’ll let you speak first. Like with going to church, there’s a big difference between a church that says “where have you been?” and a church that says “I’m so glad to see you.” Which one is going to want to make you come back more?

And we’ve never had rain on Hike the Heights.

Now you know, the first Saturday of June is a sacred day.

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More than Just One Day

By Sarah Townley

How better to learn, acknowledge, celebrate, and honor our interconnectedness as humans with all other beings, creatures, and plant life than walking together?

Hike the Heights brings folks from all directions—the North, South, West, and East—to meet in one spot to share the immediate stories of what they experienced along the way, as well as to create art and celebrate being involved in this party based on interconnection. This immediacy of the party is predicated, however, on the building of relationships prior to this one very special day.

When describing Hike the Heights to some folks, often people look baffled, because it is seemingly just one day where people walk and gather and have a good time…yet there is so much more. After one of my very first Hike the Heights celebrations, the heat was intense as we cleared away the tables and chairs (to be sent back to one of the many “potluck” contributors). Dr. Mindy looked at me and said “so it isn’t just about the party, it is the process, the preparation, the pre-meetings, the conference calls, emails, but most importantly the face-to-face interactions between groups and individuals who may have never connected before.” I knew at the time she was telling me something deeper, a glimpse into a greater understanding of how to view the world, but it wasn’t until my later involvement with Hike the Heights that her words were made clear.

Year after year I began to recognize people from meetings, from previous years, and eventually from my own neighborhood. Polite introductory conversations with familiar faces eventually evolved into “ok now how can we best look at this zoning proposal, how can we best understand how gentrifica-tion is affecting our neighborhoods, do you want to go to that meeting with me?” Or “how about we meet up on Saturday and clean this space in the park.” and “Hey I didn’t know there was a homeless shelter in the neighborhood…how can I get involved?” And even “how can your school and my school work together for better health opportunities for students in our district?”

To look at it as “just a one day event”…a one day “walk through the park”…“all of this work for one day,” now I realize, is to take a dualistic view of the world. The process of creating the hike is part of building/energizing an ecosystem that is dynamic, diverse and because of these, it is enjoyable…it is a whole being knit together. That we are all interconnected and in process of becoming is celebrated by being together this one day. Recognizing these connections made while walking with one another is invaluable time contributed to the strengthening of the whole community.

During Hike the Heights 10, I convinced a friend who grew up next to Highbridge Park, but never had been inside due to the warnings she received as a child to not go there, to come on the hike. Together we walked with our children whose excitement to be there among such quiet beauty rising above the city, slowly melted away the visible anxiety my friend held in her face. She is an avid skateboarder, so when we reached the skate park under the bridges the light in her face and her kid’s beamed. She dropped her board in the rink and the kids were delighted to see their mom play. Along the hike, we noticed ancient rock formations, tiny sturdy flowers, steady trees posed in thoughtful postures, large colorful leaves—all of this beauty telling their own stories of their home to neigh-bors passing by. This beauty, rooted into the earth, absorbed my friend’s anxiety; allowed her fear to

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dissipate and joy take over. She described “Hike the Heights” as “vibing it out” in her words: “once a person or group come together to change a situation for the positive it vibes out to others, it gives energy to others to try new things, help each other out.”

Each person has a part in creating the “vibe” of this day. The energy of love and joy the organizers bring to this celebration energizes all around, as they artfully orchestrate groups of folks to make this day work …even special dances that staved off rain. The exhausted, joyful look on Lourdes’s face told me this is how to weave our lives with folks we may not have connected with before… we give our best to share the joy of these public spaces. This particular public space, Highbridge Park, once a source of fear, of unknown territory, is made sacred by the ritual and presence of the hikers, dancers, singers, old, and young all simply walking together.

Some of the organizers celebrating the successful Hike the Heights 3.

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Parks for All

Arelis De La O and Tamara Royal, in conversation with Mindy Fullilove, March, 2017

Mindy: I have a photo of when the Community Research Group first went into Highbridge Park (see “Can You Get There From Here?”). I wanted to see the park, but it was a little sketchy. How did you know it was safe to go in Highbridge Park?

Arelis: It wasn’t safe. But I did not care. I believed in what we were doing. Before they used to call the trails a “dungeon” and the message from the dungeon was, “Don’t come down here or else.”

I was like, say what? I just got a challenge. Before we used to go down there and go pick up needles, garbage, and other garbage they had down there and they were like, “Oh, you’re trespassing.” I said, “Spare me. Get out of my way. And let me let you know, we’re going to be coming to visit this place a little bit more frequently so I need you to pick up and go.”

A lot of people helped get the park clean for us to use. The kids that play basketball, some of them did the trails before us, to make sure the area was safe for us to go down there. It wasn’t me by myself. But it was things that we’d take upon ourselves, because we have to be responsible for our properties. It’s in our neighborhood, so we consider it our property. We should be taking care of it. So we would send a message, “Hey, y’all gotta clear out because we’re going to start doing things in this neighborhood.”

They weren’t too happy. Since they’d had a long period of time that nobody was doing nothing, they were already owning it. They were like, “Oh we can do anything down there.” You could see clothes. I was like, “Lord I hope they didn’t rape nobody down here or anything.”

Tamara: It’s true, because now it’s different. It’s not that it was abandoned. It may look abandoned, but somebody else has claimed it for their purpose. Someone’s got dibs. They’re doing their thing and you’re claiming it and reclaiming it.

Arelis: And that’s how we started. And then, you know, getting the word out. Telling people to come out and use the park more frequently. There would be different events. And I think that even triggered Highbridge Park to have more events in their park. Because usually it was only just for the kids to play basketball, use it in the summer for swimming. But when we started the CLIMB thing, everybody wanted to be part of it. But it was gradually. Not everybody jumped at the same time. We used to do flyers, word of mouth, knock on doors, leave little papers under their doors and tell them to come out to the parks, see different events going on. Because Spanish people thought, “Oh no that’s not for us.” So gradually every year more people and more people started coming over the years. But we did a lot of legwork.

Tamara: A lot of legwork. What stands out to me that it was called from the beginning “Hike the Heights.” It’s not “Stroll in the Park.” It’s not “Walk in the Park.” Right? It’s a hike. And when you think about what a hike is there are times you get tired, you keep hiking, you take a break, you dis-cover something new, you get blisters, but you still hike. Right? It’s not a walk in the park. It’s a hike. When I was recruiting families to come, I never mentioned the hill. We would cross the street and then all of a sudden right away. Huffing and puffing. I said, “There’s a party at the end. You gotta work for it. We’re not just here yet.” There’s a sense of accomplishment you gotta work for.

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Arelis: It’s good. And you know every year, like I said, more people will show up, asking, “Oh how can I help? What can I do?” Then we had donations of water. So we would go in different locations and spread that out. Put the giraffes in different locations so people started to see this live. And think like, “Okay, so they for real with what they doing.” Cuz usually people doubt at first. So they would see that every year we would put a little bit more. And a little bit more. And a little bit more. And the thing was grow-ing, and it was growing, and they’re like, “Oh my god they must have something going on.” I think by the third year that we were going we went from a hundred to 200 people. And then all of a sudden we went from 200 to three, four, and I was like, “Jesus we’re growing. We’re growing. It’s too many people coming.”

But then we had to organize them and put them up in different locations. It was beautiful. It was growing and it was really developing something. It was developing a momentum. And every year a lot of people were looking forward for that day. That first Saturday in the month of June. It’s the first Saturday of June. Ever year everybody was looking forward to that.

Tamara: Our families have said that the association with parks was you’re hanging out, you’re doing drugs. Uptown parks were not like Central Park—you wouldn’t go. Families stayed home, and kept the kids in the apartment all weekend. If you were in the parks, it was to hang out and get into trou-ble. I think it was part of the elation that we experienced when we started to hike. And then there’s a park with trees. It’s like being... You’re not in a New York City park. You’re like in this other world. This part of the park. Yeah. And you’re doing your hike. You have all these other experiences that are not what we associated with parks.

Arelis: And if anybody knows about those trails, if it was before CLIMB, they would never in their life go there. From 200th Street down to 155th street, you never went there. If somebody told you they passed down there, you’d be like, “Did this one do drugs? Why would they be down there?” That’s the bad conception that they have about the trails. But CLIMB just flipped the whole thing over, made them do a 360. So now when you talk about the trails, it’s like you are talking about Cen-tral Park—in a way. Not that it’s that safe, but it’s gonna get there.

Tamara: Well Central Park is the butt of the giraffe, right? [all laugh] When I started talking about that in the office I thought I’d walk or I’d eat my lunch and check it out. The look on everyone’s face. “What is she doing in the park?” Now we’ve had a huge shift in the association with parks, so that it means something totally different. A totally different concept. And the hype would even get people away from the bad things. You have this whole insane community, but if you’d just go this way in a group it’s this whole other experience.

Arelis: And you were alive. I was even looking throughout the years. Do you know we changed a lot of people’s lives also? The ones that were doing wrong? They would see us... Every year we would do mulching. Some of the people who were using drugs that were down there, they would move out of

Lourdes Rodríguez and Arelis De La O at the entrance to the High Bridge at Hike the Heights 6.

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our way to get out. I was like, “Wow! Really?” Because before they would start riffing. They would start fighting like, “Hey you are in my boundaries. You’re messing my thing up. Like I want to do what I want to do.” As it shifted, they would just turn around and be like okay. And they would walk away. And I was like, “Yes! This thing is doing good.”

Tamara: CLIMB connected the dots. I was running the school at P.S. 5 on Dyckman. There was a related school 40 blocks away, but we were isolated and separate from each other. Eventually the director who ran the Children’s Aid programs at PS 8 at Sunken Playground got involved. Now it’s the highlight of the year for them.

There was a year that I didn’t post myself as a hiker. I was at the party greeting the hikers as they arrived. So I met up with the teachers and some of the directors at that school. That was the best. If there’s one thing that’s the best part is being greeted at the playground. You can’t just show up quiet-ly. A greeting. An acknowledgement.

Arelis: Wherever you hiked from.

Tamara: Wherever you hiked from or whatever you had to go through. Wow, to think about the history. The turning points and how it’s still resonating. We’ve had our challenges. I remember there was one year there was no time. And teachers were like, “But we need to make giraffes!” [Everyone laughs.] We sent it home as a project. We’ve made giraffes for so long, we aren’t going to stop making giraffes because it’s not in the curriculum anymore. We still did what we did. And even as my respon-sibilities change ... my teachers, we have to stay connected to this. To keep it going. No matter what.

Arelis: That is so beautiful. People would be enlightened and be happy that they’re part of something because there’s not too many things in the neighborhood where you can connect. On top of that they have language barriers, educational barriers also, lack of time, but I’ve noticed that through the years little by little everybody would set one day out of the whole year. They’re like, “Oh, but how can I be part of this?” Easy, just show up. Learn something.

They owned it and then they started developing little groups talking about what’s going on. “Oh, wow look, this thing hit so big and it’s so good let’s try it next year,” and they would ask is this going to happen next year?” I said, “Of course, don’t you know we’re starting something big.” They would be happy to be part of. And I told them: own it, you need to own it. You need to show the little ones, the teenagers, the older people they need to come and share that day with us.

I think other people within the project of the 12 years have owned a little bit of CLIMB. And has implemented, in their own ways, to reach out and to broaden their horizons about CLIMB. I do feel that in my heart. I took a piece of it also and I started going to Audubon Playground, at 170th and Audubon, which hasn’t been fixed, repaired or anything. It’s like the places where all the bums go.

Our group, Union Community of Washington Heights, has worked for five years. Now the park is gonna be fixed. It’s gonna take three years, and we have $7.75 million for them to repair the park in general. So they’re going to remove the annex, and they are going to expand the park.

So I am happy that I’m one of CLIMB’s soldiers. And that’s self-gratification. Because that’s what I’m happy about. And that’s what we’re working on at Audubon Playground. And that, I got it out of CLIMB. Okay? That’s my story.

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Making Connections and Building Partnerships

By Kenneth Nadolski

As a new student in the Urbanism and the Built Environment track at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in 2010, I asked Dr. Lourdes Rodríguez for suggestions about getting involved in the neighborhood. She told me about City Life Is Moving Bodies (CLIMB) and invited me for a walking meeting the next day. As we walked through Highbridge Park and she told me about CLIMB and Hike the Heights, I was hooked.

I ended up helping to organize Hike the Heights 7 as a practicum student and then served as a co-chair and one of the many organizers for Hike the Heights 8 the following year. I have continued to be part of the CLIMB Consensus Group, as well as a hike leader for Hike the Heights 9, 10, and 13. In addition to my involvement with Hike the Heights, I helped submit a proposal for CLIMB to be matched with pro bono designers. We were selected and I served on the team from CLIMB, who worked with these wonderful designers to engage the community (including at Hike the Heights 9) and to create a map of the CLIMB trail, which was printed in time for Hike the Heights 10 in 2014.

I’m honored to have been involved with the amazing community of people who are CLIMB and Hike the Heights. I’m also deeply thankful for the many lessons I learned about community, making connections, and building partnerships.

Dr. Mindy Fullilove taught me that our cities are fractured and we must work to restore the connec-tions that strengthen the urban fabric in order to improve health. CLIMB’s mission has been to in-crease the physical, social, and civic activity in the communities of northern Manhattan through the promotion of an urban hiking trail that connects Fort Tryon Park, Highbridge Park, Jackie Robinson Park, St. Nicholas Park, Morningside Park, and Central Park. In other words, CLIMB is all about making connections. By connecting the parks, the trail also connects neighborhoods and people. It was always exciting to see these connections come to life at the annual Hike the Heights event.

One year I chatted with a woman who had lived near Highbridge Park for years, but had never walked on the trails through the park. She was amazed by the natural beauty and views and told me she had no idea it was there. I asked her if she would visit again in the future, to which she replied, “I’m going to come back with my family!”

I loved the moment when hikers from the north and the south converged at Highbridge Park for the community celebration. Seeing neighbors from around northern Manhattan come together for fun, food, art, activities, and performances was wonderful. And there were ICEES! Kids of all ages (in-cluding me) loved those icees.

During my time working with CLIMB, I learned that one secret to the success of Hike the Heights was building partnerships. CLIMB itself has been a partnership of various individuals and organizations working together. Some of the individuals and organizations have been working together since the first Hike the Heights in 2005, others have come and gone, and new people have joined each year.

The organizing model of Hike the Heights has been called a “community potluck,” meaning that individuals and organizations contribute something to make the event a success. This could be

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anything from contributing an activity or perfor-mance to inviting friends and neighbors to join a hike. In a fruitful partnership, both partners ben-efit from working together. Therefore, it was also important that in addition to bringing something to the event, individuals and organizations got something out of it. For individuals, this might be a fun day in the parks. For organizations, this might be using the Hike the Heights event as an opportunity to further their missions. We have had asthma marches, rock climbing, art projects, and at least one baby shower, to demonstrate just a small sample of the ways people have participat-ed in Hike the Heights.

Bringing individuals and organizations together to plan and be involved in Hike the Heights is not just about creating a successful community event on the first Saturday of every June. It is about bringing people together to plant a seed of what is possible in the parks, with the hope that organi-zations and individuals will continue to use the trail and parks year round. It is about making con-nections and building partnerships as a way to strengthen communities and make people and their neighborhoods healthier.

Rock climbing at Hike the Heights 8.

A handout from Hike the Heights 2, showing the logos of that year’s partners.

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Explore Your City

By Edie Ricks

While attending monthly meetings for community youth organizations, I met many people involved with helping youth in our community. As a community resident, not affiliated with an organization, I offered to work with anyone who may need help. After attending several meetings, Lourdes Rodrí-guez from CLIMB took me up on my offer.

As I worked with Lourdes, my assignment became to organize all information regarding CLIMB.

The objective of CLIMB is simple: get people of all ages in the city to move their bodies. CLIMB organizes Hike The Heights, an annual walk through the streets and parks of upper Manhattan. The final destination is the playground in Highbridge Park. In 2016 (the 12th annual event), we also celebrated the reopening of the High Bridge, connecting Manhattan with the Bronx. It is a day of eating healthy food, listening to great music, and participating in many activities. ALL FREE. The objective of the walk is to get people to move and to become familiar with the great parks in their neighborhood.

I really love the spirit of CLIMB and Hike the Heights. Getting out and moving your body is healthy both physically and mentally. Also, when you’re out you can meet people. For example, I attended a community meet-ing and someone told me about the youth meetings. Attending the youth meetings led me to CLIMB.

We are fortunate to live in NYC. It is a great city for walking and moving your body. There is so much to experience—once you get out there, one thing leads to another. As a senior citizen, I realize how important it is for me to move. I attend the senior center at the “Y.” There I’ve learned to knit, crochet, and bead. I then joined the Crochet Guild

and the Knitting Guild. Each guild has many events and activities. I also go to museums, botanical gardens, and free concerts throughout the city.

I tell you this to say that once you start to move you learn about so many activities New York City has to offer. And there is so much for all ages and for all interests. Many activities are free for chil-dren, as well as seniors. Most museums and zoos have a free admission day. Libraries also have many activities for all ages.

So, while moving, explore your city and enjoy.

Music at Hike the Heights 7.

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A Natural High

By Nancy Bruning

CLIMBWhat’s that?Cee-ell-eye-em-bee.City Life Is Moving Bodies.This was music to my ears!

Hike the Heights.Well, that sounds interesting too.A poem, even.Oh, it’s an event?

Together, CLIMB and Hike the Heights embodied so many things I believed in, so many things I still hope to communicate and stimulate as an urbanist in the field of public health. I’d found my home, my people, my mission, my joy, in that first meeting so many years ago.

Climb the heights, the hills, the steps, the overlooks, the escarpment of the magnificent parks of Manhattan Island.

Climb up north—to the tip of the rock, the center of the world, formed so many eons ago by gla-ciers bigger than the imagination.

Climb past the place where geologist Sidney Hornstein found a fossilized piece of woolly mammoth. Climb to places that Lenape tribes lived, fished, hunted, sang, dance, and loved.

Climb through the Highbridge forest, a stopover for birds that fly thousands of miles each year. Climb to the High Bridge and Croton aqueduct that watered New York City and made it what it is today. Climb and survey the land, the sea, the great big sky.

Climb past the Polo Grounds, home of Giants in 1890. Climb past the home of the founder of the money system of the USA, and inspiration for a Broadway musical. Climb past a pond and waterfall where a gym was supposed to be built. Now turtles, ducks, geese, and snowy white egrets and a very big loud frog wait to greet you.

Climb along the Giraffe Path, climb along the shape of a gentle creature, in a moving meditation and a moving away from sufferings, from violence, drugs, sedentary living, displacement, isolation. To enter the forest is to enter a lush dreamland in spring and summer; to be bathed in a rainbow of colors in the fall; enlightened by the bones of the land revealed in winter.

For twelve years I have joined my neighbors in this trek and celebration, this revelation. Together, we feel the healthy energy of nature wash over us and through us; we take it in with all the senses. Touching, hearing, seeing, inhaling, unconsciously tasting the floating ancient molecules of those who came before us. As we climb our bodies rise, our spirits rise too.

Placing one foot in front of the other, the earth and grass, the sticks and glass beneath us, the steady

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rhythm allows my mind to wander to the past, even to my past relationship with these parts. I think about how my heart broke to see the neglect these parks suffered when I first started working here over 10 years ago. Today my heart is beginning to mend just as these parks are beginning to be mended, discovered by the people who lived here for decades and finally by the people who control the money.

I think of all the young, old, black, brown, tall, short, talkative, quiet buddies that I have lead along this path, and how the hiking has changed us all, even as we are changing the parks. These parks are steeped in the past. Together they can help us create a brighter future.

Lourdes Rodríguez and Nancy Bruning celebrating the success of Hike the Heights 3.

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An Education from CLIMB and Hike the Heights

By Pooja Clayton

CLIMB transformed my view of my environment and allowed me an opportunity to become an active part in revitalizing my community. Engaging the community in their own built environment seemed initially like such a simplistic idea, but breathing new life into an existing space required ensuring people felt safe and that the space was actually safe. Initially, it seemed as if these ideas were abstract and were impossible to achieve especially with so many other priorities within the commu-nity and the local government; however, after being involved in the CLIMB Consensus Group, I was amazed at the level of dedicated community involvement and passion to the cause to re-invigorate Highbridge Park.

Although this project began to revitalize a trail in northern Manhattan, it took on a life of its own as a movement to transform a neighborhood. The community effort displayed in the organizations and the individuals who freely gave their time and services to further a cause that would benefit the larger community was no greater exhibition of action research in motion.

As a doctoral student, to be a part of an active movement that could result (and ultimately did) in actually achieving its outcomes within my lifetime was a priceless opportunity. I learned an immense amount about communities coming together to achieve a common goal and the mechanisms with-

in which they can function such as on community boards, orchestrating fundraising sites, and generating sup-portive contributions in the form of goods and services from community members and those living in and out-side of the neighborhood of Washing-ton Heights that all led to the annual success of Hike the Heights.

The yearly community gathering event was not just about revealing the space, welcoming the community in, and celebrating together, it was also about bringing people together for a common purpose to draw attention to the services available in the communi-

ty and how individuals could work together to make the space habitable and usable.

The same parks that I used to frequent with my children for quick walks and something to do on a nice day became our outdoor playground and backyard. Having grown up in the country to find a piece of it within the city changed our lives and made us more mobile and allowed us more togeth-erness as a family and a community. The experience of being involved with the CLIMB Consensus Group and the individuals I met was an integral part of my education and a life-altering experience that I was privileged to take part in.

Hikers from the WIN for Asthma complete their annual Asthma Awareness walk by arriving at the Sunken Playground for Hike the Heights 6.

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A Full Heart

By Brennan Rhodes-Bratton

I first learned about CLIMB during my Master’s program. Lourdes was one of my mentors and invited me to the event. I brought along a few friends to help out, and we had a BLAST. One of my favorite memories of Hike the Heights 6 was enjoying the company of young girls from my neigh-borhood who I never met before. We danced, hula hooped, and laughed for an entire afternoon. I will never forget how full my heart felt when I left the event.

Throughout the years, I’ve had the opportunity to be involved with multiple aspects of CLIMB including vol-unteering as a Hike Leader, attending Consensus Group meetings, presenting CLIMB at an American Public Health Association meeting, bringing friends and family to Hike the Heights, and connecting my work to Hike the Heights. Now that we have a new addition to our family, I especially look forward to giving back to CLIMB since I want my son to be exposed to the values CLIMB holds dear. For instance, when I think of Hike the Heights the first thing that comes to mind are all the lovely people I have met over the years. Second is the effort of all these kindhearted health enthusiasts. The celebration is only possible because of all the people that care about the mis-sion, to increase the physical, social, and civic activity in the communities of northern Manhattan.

While working at the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health, I was able to reconnect the Community Outreach and Translation Core to Hike the Heights. In preparation for one Hike the Heights, we held an event for the Center’s research participants to make giraffes for the Giraffe Path. The beauty of

CLIMB was expressed in the imagination of the kids and adults as they made unique creations. Any-thing was possible. When the Community Research Group first started walking the trails of northern Manhattan, it was hard to believe revitalization of the parks could happen, but their vision support-ed the efforts that helped lead to the reopening of the High Bridge! The CLIMB Consensus Group members recognize the importance of community space in connecting residents to one another and to their local resources. It’s been an insightful learning experience to witness how to weave the fabric of the community together.

One of my most proud CLIMB moments is the Hike the Heights that I got to participate as a Hike Leader. It was super fun to walk through my community and share in this moment of exploration with fellow hikers. I also saw parts of northern Manhattan that I had never experienced before. CLIMB has a beautiful way of reintroducing you to what you saw for years. I’m looking forward to what I learn from Hike the Heights to come!

Hikers from Concrete Safaris with trail markers at Hike the Heights 10.

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Learning About Community

By Audrey Jenkins

When I came to New York City, I was 22 years old and ended up in northern Manhattan by chance. My identity at that time seems like a stereotype—recent college graduate from a privileged back-ground seeks adventure by moving to the city—but I was also seeking a new home. I had moved frequently growing up and had never felt endeared to the various suburbs where my family had lived. I preferred being around people, lots of people, strangers and acquaintances alike.

As part of searching for a new home, I was sensitive to my surroundings and my social spheres. I quickly noticed the striking differences between myself and the majority of residents in my area. Washington Heights is very residential, with families who have lived here for decades, many from the Dominican Republic, and many speaking only Spanish. I couldn’t blend in; I was automatically cast as newcomer, and likely as a student from one of the local universities. While they were physically next door, long-term residents of northern Manhattan seemed distant. Being inexperienced with urban life and unsure of how to better integrate, I concluded that feeling at home in a new place and being part of the community can be very different things.

A few years later, I started volunteering with Reading Partners, tutoring English reading to elemen-tary level kids in Harlem. We would always start sessions with a little conversation to break the ice. I loved hearing about their weekend adventures and family histories. So, my first real community connections while living in northern Manhattan were at least 15 years younger than me.

It wasn’t until I became a student of Mindy’s a full four years after moving to NYC that I began to see Washington Heights as a community that I could be part of. She took students outside to see the neighborhood and brought local leaders into the classroom. She told us to get out and get involved. This is how learning should be, I thought. I had asked to get involved with CLIMB and Hike the Heights months earlier because I knew I had a lot to learn, but I had no idea that what I would learn would help me rethink my own role in the Washington Heights community.

In spring 2016, I attended planning meetings for the Hike the Heights 12. Knowing no one and very little about the event itself, I was just trying to keep up. At first, I thought of my involvement as a part of my education at Mailman School of Public Health, but I realized that most of the peo-ple at the meetings were unaffiliated with the university. What’s more, the people showing up were sometimes as new to Hike the Heights as me, while others had been around for years (some since the beginning).

Two student co-chairs, Teddy and Angela, led the meetings along-side Mindy. Something I noticed about Teddy and Angela is that they listened. Working together, they tracked the progress of the fundraising, the event planning, and the projects that community organizations and members were volunteering to lead, but they never dominated the conversation. The Hike was truly driven by a diverse crowd interested in improving and celebrating the parks in Washington Heights and north-ern Manhattan. My small role was to post social media content for fundraising that had been artfully crafted by another team of volunteers.

The day of the hike, I woke up early and met other volunteers at the Sunken Playground to unload

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tables and chairs. It was a constant trek up and down a long bumpy ramp rolling dollies of folded chairs, and another constant trek setting up (and a third and fourth trek at the end of the day mov-ing all those chairs and tables back to the church that had donated them). Two and a half hours later, I ran home for water and met up with my partner Mikhail and our dog Dobby at the southern start-ing point, 110th and Central Park West. With a crowd of strangers from the community, we walked north through the parks—laughing with other people having fun, enjoying the beautiful weather, and getting to know the parks, the people, and the area a little better. At the end, we had lunch at the Sunken Playground, watching kids play and listening to local musicians perform on stage.

Hike the Heights was the first community-led event I attended as a New Yorker. Having some part in making it happen made me feel like I belonged, and helped me to meet the people who were here before me. I learned that entering into a community is about meeting many people from diverse backgrounds who know the area, getting to know the names of places, and finding out what the peo-ple who occupy spaces in the community are up to. I have a better sense of belonging now, one that I may have had sooner had I known about Hike the Heights years earlier—but what I know now is that to be a part of the community surrounding your home, it’s important to get out, see the sights, and know the people. One good way to do that as a newcomer is to get involved.

Art at Hike the Heights 10.

Hikers from the south enter Highbridge Park at Hike the Heights 10.

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A Poem

By Nupur Chaudhury

Children LaughingMusic Playing

This too, is health

People PerformingParents talking

This too, is medicine

Kids coloringYouth Organizing

This too, is healing

Neighbors jumpingClinics Conversing

This too, is evidence

Holding handsSharing food

This too, is healing

Grass and chalkSun and ice cream

This too, is medicine

Smiles and hopePromise and persistence

This too, is health

Molly Rose Kaufman leads a group of hikers at Hike the Heights 2.

Participants with giant giraffe heads created by Tony Gonzalez (back, right) and decorated by participants at Hike the Heights 11.

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Who WIll organIze ClImb?

A group of mice wondered how they might stay safe from the cat that menaced them. One day they found a bell and they realized it would be a perfect solution.

They would hang it around the cat’s neck. They would hear the cat coming and they could escape. The next step was to put the bell around the cat’s neck.

They looked around at each other, asking, “Who will bell the cat?” — Aesop Fable

As discussed, CLIMB started as a project of the Community Research Group, later renamed the Cities Research Group. CRG launched the idea, recruited partners, and adapted the idea of the Consensus Group from the model in Pittsburgh. From the beginning, the CLIMB Consensus Group was the group that made decisions, ranging from the menu to the art projects to the production of a map of Giraffe Path. In addition, the members of the Consensus Group contributed individual and organizational resources, whether it was housing the stage and bringing it to Hike the Heights or contributing money for free icees.

During the thirteen years of CLIMB we have been building the strength of a collective muscle and we have built collective muscle memory for carrying out necessary tasks. The nerves that trigger the collective muscle are the relationships we have built over the years. This is, in part, how communities accrue social capital. While that does not fully answer the question of “who will bell the cat,” it is an important part of the sustainability of this project. The other part of sustainability is mobilizing the Consensus Group, which is work carried out by the facilitator.

For 13 years, CRG filled this role. CRG sometimes had grants or projects related to CLIMB that helped support the work. For example, for seven years the Columbia Center for Youth Violence Prevention housed the project as our built environment intervention to prevent violence. At other times, CRG staff contributed their time to get the organizing done. Lourdes Rodríguez, the lead organizer, would often make a walking meeting or coffee date to connect with her “peeps” all over Washington Heights. CRG, because of its position at the Mailman School of Public Health, could call on colleagues and students. Mindy Fullilove, Robert Fullilove, and Lourdes Rodríguez all taught courses that touched on the issues addressed by the CLIMB project. Students were an enormous help in getting the work of CLIMB done.

CRG, however, assumed a new, dispersed form when Lourdes left for the Dell Medical School in Austin, Texas, and Mindy Fullilove left for The New School in Greenwich Village, and could no longer be the facilitator of CLIMB. While many individuals were ready to help plan Hike the Heights 13—perhaps especially Audrey Jenkins and Angela Allard—there was no neighborhood organizer with the ability to mobilize the local relationships and swing the group into action. The flexing of our collective muscles makes it easier to sustain initiatives, but the muscle is inert until the facilitator activates it. As epidemiologists would say, the collective muscle memory is “necessary but

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not sufficient.” We needed someone to facilitate the work of the Consensus Group, in order to get the work done for Hike the Heights 13.

Maria Lizardo, Executive Director of the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation (NMIC), was able to get some funding for a part-time organizer, Ysabel Abreu. Lourdes pitched in from her new home in Texas, Mindy helped lead a fundraiser, and Audrey, Angela, and Ysabel worked with other Consensus Group members on permits, entertainment, food, hike leaders, and other details of the day. At the conclusion of Hike the Heights 13, Maria shared that she thought NMIC would get the funding to continue the work and this came true. Not only did the project move to a new organizational home at NMIC, but also our homeless giant giraffe head had a place to go too!

As Coach Dave pointed out, there are more problems to solve, more work to be done. CLIMB offers a way of doing that work, but who will organize CLIMB? Will NMIC continue to have funding to support the CLIMB organizing? Will the Mailman School of Public Health remain part of the Consensus Group? Will students find their way into leadership? Will the relationships segue into new organizations and forms of action, leaving CLIMB behind? These are a few of the many questions to be answered.

Hanging the giant giraffe in its new home at NMIC!

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WhaT dId We aCComplIsh (so far)?

When the CRG team first started walking in Highbridge Park in 2004—taking time out in nature —it reminded us of Narnia. We felt like we had entered a different world, and it had a broken lamp-post, just as Narnia did! We loved being able to leave the city and wander in an empty landscape. We knew there were other people around because we saw broken bottles, abandoned clothes, and graffiti that people had left behind. We did not want to displace those people, some of whom called the park home. But we did dream of reconnecting the parks to the neighborhoods, so that they might become a force of restoration, rather than a force of separation and fear. We wanted people to love their parks and the parks to love the neighborhood back.

CLIMB became part of a growing advocacy for the northern Manhattan parks, started by Partner-ships for Parks. Through hundreds of walking meetings, the annual Hike the Heights events, the CLIMB Summer and CLIMB DoubleTake projects, presentations at conferences, teaching hundreds of students about the parks and engaging them in the project, and the recruitment of hundreds of partners, we were able to help launch a movement in support of these northern Manhattan parks. This movement accomplished important work. Together with our neighbors we:

• Advocated for and celebrated the reopening of the High Bridge;

• Participated in the Steering Committee that informed a master plan for the northern Manhattan Parks;

• Advocated for and celebrated investments in all the parks, including $30 million for Highbridge Park awarded in 2016;

• Witnessed and celebrated capital improvements like the reconstruction of the John T. Brush Stairs, the Water Tower Terrace stairs, the Highbridge Recreation Center, and the Skate Park under the 181st Street Bridge; and

• Have enjoyed seeing more and more people from all walks of life using the park (pun intended)!

The CLIMB Consensus Group has grown and learned together over the past 13 years. Moving for-ward, we are poised for sustainability and ready for new challenges and adventures to come. Looking ahead we are delighted that:

• We have found an organizational home in the Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation (NMIC) under the leadership of Maria Lizardo, Ysabel Abreu, and their peeps.

• We have also found a physical home at NMIC for the beautiful (and gigantic) giraffe heads created by Tony Gonzalez and decorated by the collective during our annual celebration.

• Hike the Heights has taken on a life of its own—people show up and expect that the event will happen. More importantly, however, is that they are part of making it happen!

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Planning to Stay, the positive opposite of gentrification, requires that we build on each other’s people power. More importantly, it requires that we build on our empathy. If we act from empathy, we are more likely to invent new policies that maintain housing affordability, that demand living wage jobs, and that respect the humanity of the vulnerable. With parks getting investment, public spaces thriv-ing, and quality of life improving, we run the risk of private interests coopting the hard-earned wins of our work together.

Because of this, it behooves us to continue to CLIMB together, flex that civic muscle we have strengthened, building on the relationships we have forged while walking the streets and trails of our neighborhoods together. The fate of our Beloved Community depends on it.

Until we meet once again in the park, HAPPY TRAILS!

The entrance to the High Bridge closed with a gate and barbed wire during an early CLIMB walk.

Joseph Sanchez, with his daughter, showing some students the reopened High Bridge.

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An Urbanist’s Manifesto

Since CLIMB’s founding, we have sought to combat the effects of gentrification. Please cut out or copy “An Urbanist’s Manifesto” by Nelson Saldaña (below), sign, and put in a prominent place.

An Urbanist’s Manifesto

We acknowledge:• Our contributions to the phenomena of gentrification, no matter how big or small. We amend:• To engage our adopted communities in ways that ensure its original members are not displaced. • To develop spaces that are not exclusive and put in place for all. • To preserve the integrity of people.• To evolve without exploitation. The Undersigned:

__________________ __________________

__________________ __________________

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shouT-ouTs!

After each Hike the Heights, it is a CLIMB tradition to send out a “Shout-Out” email to thank everyone who gave their time, energy, and ideas to make Hike the Heights possible. In that spirit, we would like to give a Shout-Out to the people, organizations, and local businesses who have made CLIMB, Hike the Heights, and The CLIMB Chronicles possible! Many are listed below. Thank you!

Abyssinian Development Corporation, Accentuate Fitness, Agenda for Children Tomorrow, Alianza Dominicana, Angela Allard, Yisel Alonzo, ArchCare TimeBank, Atelier Cantal-Dupart, Bama Catering, Terri Baltimore, Erin Barnes, Emily Berliant, Ira Blanchard, Sarah Booth, Boriken Neighborhood Health Center, Broadway Housing Communities, Paul Browde, Marshall Brown, Rich Brown, Nancy Bruning, Demetria Cain, Caffè X, Antonio Camacho, Michel Cantal-Dupart, Angela Maria Carmen, Manuela Ceballos, Center Care Health Plan, Center for Family and Community Medicine, CHALK, Nupur Chaudhury, Citizens Committee for New York City, City Harvest, City Parks Foundation, Pooja Clayton, Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health, Columbia Center for the Study of Inequalities and Health, Columbia Center for Youth Violence Prevention, Columbia Community Partnership for Health, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, CUMC Office of Government and Community Affairs, Community League of the Heights, Concrete Safaris, Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers, Coogan’s Restaurant, Jason Corburn, Cornell University Cooperative Extension, Countee Cullen Community Center, Creative Arts Works, Creative Health, Coach Dave Crenshaw, Patricia Culligan, Dancing in the Streets, Arelis De La O, De La Vega, Denys Candy, DesigNYC, Deutshe Bank, Joanne Dittersdorf, Doral Bank, Eastern Mountain Sports, Julie Erickson, George Espinal, Family to Family, Fidelis Care, Michael Fitelson, Havanna Fisher, For A Better Bronx, Fresh Youth Initiatives, Friends Committee of Fort Tryon Park Trust, Friends of Payson Avenue, Mindy Fullilove, Robert Fullilove, Laura Gabby, Melissa Garcia, Yekaterina Gluzberg, Greater Community Reach, Juan Carlos Gonzalez, Lina Gonzalez, Tony Gonzalez, Christian Guerrero, Harlem Children’s Zone, Ann Hartenstein, Healthy Habits, Highbridge Park and Recreation Center Staff, Jennifer Hoppa, Denise Hykes, Susan Illman, Incarnation Children’s Center, In Vino Veritas, Inwood Community Services, ioby, Craig Irvine, Aki Ishida, JCL Team, Evelyn Joseph, Audrey Jenkins, Molly Rose Kaufman, Kenworthy-Swift Foundation, Amelia Krales, Kaja Kühl, Vanny Lantigua, Literacy Inc., Maria Lizardo, Lucille Roberts Inc., Moriah McSharry McGrath, Charles McKinney, Matt Mahoney, Mia Martinez, Danny Mercado, Midtown Bikes, Ken Nadolski, Kiara Nagel, National Park Service, Ben Nebo, Maudene Nelson, New Coliseum Theatre Corporation, New Horizons, New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, New York Restoration Project, New York Road Runners, Northern Manhattan Community Voices Collaborative, Northern Manhattan Improvement Corporation, NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital Ambulatory Nutrition Services, NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital Healthy Schools Healthy Families, Open Society Institute, Angelo Ortíz, Partnerships for Parks, Mari Pascoe, Lizzette Perez, Dahlia Perry, P.S. 5 / Children’s Aid Society, Richard Plunz, Vivian Price, REI, Edie Ricks, Lourdes Rodríguez, Rojelio Rodríguez, Brennan Rhodes-Bratton, Tamara Royal, Andrew Rubinson, Celeste Russell, Nelson Saldaña, Joseph Sanchez, Rebecca Scott, South Bronx CSA, Bea Spolidoro, Benjamin Spoer, Strictly Roots, Students in the CLIMB 155th Street Studio, Students in the Urbanism and the Built Environment Track, Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling, Teddy Swenson, Tamara Michel, Terri Baltimore, Tree of Life, Troop 718, Sarah Townley, UC Berkeley, UNIDOS Inwood Coalition, Union Community of Washington Heights, University of Cincinnati, Uptown Arts Stroll, Uptown Juice Bar, Venture Prep Girls of Washington Heights, Victor Bike Repair, Rodrick Wallace, Walk it Out! Harlem Hospital Center, WE ACT for EnvironmentalJustice, Lindsey Wahlstrom, Lynnette Widder, WIN for Asthma and Diabetes Programs, Kat Yu, Zead Ramadan

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